Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Am I correct in assuming that all you are doing is replicating the material that appeared in the Challenge magazines with minimal corrections?
Wet Navy Ship Design
- Thread starter Timerover51
- Start date
Am I correct in assuming that all you are doing is replicating the material that appeared in the Challenge magazines with minimal corrections?
That was the original plan. But using COACC as a template, I am going to expand it a bit, adding ship examples, base layouts, that kind of thing.
snrdg082102
SOC-14 1K
Hi sfchbryan,
The individual that posted the question has expressed the opinion that Traveller design systems similar to the Wet Navy articles should be able to accurately design historic or existing equipment.
On my own behalf I like close enough, my hang-up is with the propeller (screw) diameter. I'd like a hull matching say the HMS Hood, Titanic, or Flower-class corvette having a screw or screws about the same diameter in Wet Navy.
Of course Wet Navy and COACC are also future projects to restart again, unless someone else produces game aids I can use to design something.
Originally Posted by timerover51
Am I correct in assuming that all you are doing is replicating the material that appeared in the Challenge magazines with minimal corrections?
That was the original plan. But using COACC as a template, I am going to expand it a bit, adding ship examples, base layouts, that kind of thing.
The individual that posted the question has expressed the opinion that Traveller design systems similar to the Wet Navy articles should be able to accurately design historic or existing equipment.
On my own behalf I like close enough, my hang-up is with the propeller (screw) diameter. I'd like a hull matching say the HMS Hood, Titanic, or Flower-class corvette having a screw or screws about the same diameter in Wet Navy.
Of course Wet Navy and COACC are also future projects to restart again, unless someone else produces game aids I can use to design something.
Well, that individual is looking for too fine of a granularity. Traveller is a role-playing game, it isn't a simulation.
On the other hand, nothing is set in stone - If the propeller formulas aren't working, then they need to be adjusted. To do that, somebody needs to design ships. A lot of ships, from TL 0 canoes, TL 1 galleys, to TL5 Dreadnaughts, to TL6 Liberty ships, well, you get the idea.
I haven't got to that point yet, and quite frankly, I haven't seen a Traveller group in the last 33 years that cared.
There is always a trade-off between accuracy & playability. I fall under the "design for effect" school.
A lot of stuff in the upcoming T5 manual is going to be nothing more than a waste of paper for everyone but the gamemaster. People with actual, you betcha campaigns are going to look at things like gun maker and pass right over it.
Because quite frankly, it doesn't matter if your character takes a round from a 7.62mm, a 9mm, or a 5.56mm round, the end result is the same, so the time spend developing the guns and such are a waste of time.
Very few people play simulations - and there is a reason for that - they aren't fun.
There is a reason that games like ASL, Europa, and SFB (and I have played them all) have fallen by the wayside - they aren't games, they are lifestyles.
snrdg082102
SOC-14 1K
Hi again sfchbryan,
True, that Traveller is an RPG and for me the game is away to create storylines similar to Asmov, Norton, Heinlein and many more authors of the genre.
I won't say the propeller equations aren't working, just returning numbers that don't feel right to me. Originally I got to the propellers, got stuck, and then got distracted. My next start I got going and then got distracted. If I can get from Step 1 to the final step I'll be working one some designs. Unfortunately, I'm trying to finish up another project.
Playability is a higer priority for me too, unfortunately there aren't any groups close enough to get in a good game. Of course when I could play many of my characters didn't survive.
I'm not sure if I totally agree, since designing an effective gun for the setting one needs to know how combat works. Unfortunately, one of my failings is I'm usually light on combat rules which usually means my designs have a tendency to get hammered.
I've played very few simulations mostly because I didn't have access to them on a regular basis.
Have a good one.
True, that Traveller is an RPG and for me the game is away to create storylines similar to Asmov, Norton, Heinlein and many more authors of the genre.
I won't say the propeller equations aren't working, just returning numbers that don't feel right to me. Originally I got to the propellers, got stuck, and then got distracted. My next start I got going and then got distracted. If I can get from Step 1 to the final step I'll be working one some designs. Unfortunately, I'm trying to finish up another project.
Playability is a higer priority for me too, unfortunately there aren't any groups close enough to get in a good game. Of course when I could play many of my characters didn't survive.
I'm not sure if I totally agree, since designing an effective gun for the setting one needs to know how combat works. Unfortunately, one of my failings is I'm usually light on combat rules which usually means my designs have a tendency to get hammered.
I've played very few simulations mostly because I didn't have access to them on a regular basis.
Have a good one.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
The quoted individual has some knowledge of ship design history and nautical architecture. Putting propellers into the ship design equation is in his opinion going into far too great a detail, or
The North Carolina-class, South Dakota-class, and Iowa-class battleships built by the US immediately prior to and during World War 2 all suffered from moderate to severe propeller vibration at certain speeds, which despite a large amount of effort, including experimenting with having different propeller on the four shafts, never was totally solved. The exact cause of the vibration problem was never determined nor really understood.
My recommendation would be to drop the propeller design section entirely.
While you are at it, you may wish to take a look at the gun crew requirements as well, where presently, a primitive, Tech Level 0-3 warship, requires one gun crew member for every kilogram of weight of a gun's shot. The British ironclad "Temeraire", completed in August of 1877, and therefore a Tech Level 3 ship by MegaTraveller rules, mounted as her main battery four 11" and four 10" muzzle-loading rifles, with the 11" guns firing a 543 pound projectile, and the 10" guns a 400 pound projectile, for a total weight of 3772 pounds or 1710 kilograms. Per the above rule, that would require a crew to serve the main battery guns, others were also mounted, of 1710 persons. The total crew of the "Temeraire" including engine room crew, topmast men, marines, gun crew, and ship's officers comprised a maximum of 580. The total number of men required for the entire main battery, including ammunition supply, was 276, less than one-sixth the number called for by the design rules. The two 11" guns mounted in barbette mountings, had a crew 6, but could be effectively served by a crew of 3, using hydraulic loading equipment. The information cited is found in Oscar Parke's British Battleships.
As I have said in previous posts, the ship design sequence, when it comes to gun crews for early ships, is seriously broken. It is not too great for later ship gun crews either, except this time, it is too low rather than too high.
I have not asked that the design sequence accurate reproduced actual ships, but as a minimum it could come reasonably close. Along with the gun crew issue being so badly broken, there are severe problems with the steam power plant, the number of crew required for handling sail, and the issue of hull materials. For the naval combat rules, they could be considerably simplified, akin to say, Barry Carter's war game rules for World War One and Two, Paul Hague's rules, or the wide range of coverage in Don Featherstone's Naval Wargames. The old TSR rules for Don't Give Up the Ship work pretty well for naval combat under sail. If you want fun and fast rules, it is hard to beat My Galley Sally or Limeys and Slimeys, which I personally enjoy greatly.
Perhaps you could posit some replacements to better unbreak the rules, being as you are knowledgable and passionate about the subject (likely more so than the current writer who is content on fixing typesetting rather than rules).
I'm not familiar with the design sequences at all, but likely whatever you can come up with can perhaps improve what is there already.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Gun Crew Sizes
The following is taken from Wooden Fighting Ship in the Royal Navy, by E.H.H. Archibald. The information is turn is taken from an "Abstract of the Royal Navy on the 1st December 1730". This gives the gun crew for each size of gun which the Royal Navy based its manning on.
8 to each Cannon, which would have been a 42 pdr, total of 208 for 26 guns.
6 to each Demi-Cannon, which would have been either a 32 pdr. or 24 pdr., total of 156 for 26 guns.
5 to each Culverin, which would have been an 18 pdr., total of 140 for 28 guns or 130 for 26 guns.
4 to each 12 pdr., for 104 men for 26 guns
3 to each Saker, which would have been a 6 pdr., total of 132 for 44 guns, 108 for 36 guns, and 42 for 14 guns.
2 to each 3 pdr., for 4 men for 2 guns, and 8 men for 4 guns.
A 100-gun ship would carry 26-42 pdr., 28-18 pdr., 44-6 pdr., and 2-3 pdr. for a total gun crew of 484 men, with an additional crew of 296, total 780.
A 90-gun ship would carry 26-32 pdr., 26-18 pdr. 36-6 pdr., and 2-3 pdr. for a total gun crew of 398 men, with an additional crew of 262, total 660.
A 70-gun ship would carry 26-32 pdr., 26-12 pdr., 14-6 pdr. and 4-3 pdr. for a total gun crew of 310 men, with an additional crew of 160, total 470.
The following is taken from T. R. Roosevelt's The Naval War of 1812, downloadable at Project Gutenberg, and is an outstanding description of sailing naval warfare. It gives the crews required for a 44-gun frigate and an 18-gun sloop of war. This would be US Navy manning rates.
The USS Constitution, still extant in Boston, carried at the time of its engagement with the British Frigate, HMS Guerrière, 32 long 24 pdr. and 22-32 pdr. carronades, for a total combined broadside weight of 1472 pounds, or 667.6 kilograms. By the standard of one gun crew member for each one kilogram weight of shot, the Constitution should have had a gun crew of 668 men, not counting the rest of the crew. At the time of her engagement with the Guerrière, she was carrying a crew of 456, a bit in excess of establishment.
Additional Ships, again looking at gun crews alone.
USS Monitor, commissioned 25 February 1862, (151 years ago yesterday), carried two turret-mounted 11" Dahlgren smoothbore guns, firing shot weighing 168 pounds each, total weight of 336 pounds, or 152.4 kilograms. Per the rules, that would require a gun crew of the two guns of 152 men. The total complement of the Monitor was 47.
USS Tecumseh, a single turret monitor of a larger class than the original, commissioned 19 April 1864, mounting in the turret two 15" Dahlgren smoothbore guns firing shot weighing 440 pounds each. The combined weight of 880 pounds, or 399 kilograms would require, per the rules, a gun crew of 399 men. The total complement of the Tecumseh was 100.
HMS Warrior, the first sea-going iron-hulled battleship, commissioned in August of 1861, and still extant. For guns the Warrior carried initially, 26-68 pdr. smoothbores, 10-110 pdr. breechloading rifiles, and 4-70 pounder breechloading rifles, for a total weight of broadside of 3148 pounds, or 1427.7 kilograms. By the rules, that would require a gun crew of 1427 men. However, I also have the sail area for the Warrior, which was originally 48,400 square feet, equal to the sail plan for a sailing 80-gun ship. The rules require a crewman for every 10 square meters of sail, and as the sail would be 4496.6 square meters, that would require a crew for handling sail of 450 men. The total complement of the Warrior was 707 men. In another earlier post, I discussed the Warrior engineering plant. Only the midship section of the Warrior's hull was armored, with 4.5 inches of wrought iron armor bolted to 18 inches of teak bolted to the hull. The weight of the hull without armor was 4,281 tons. Raising the anchor manually required the services of 110 crewmen on the capstan.
HMS Inflexible, commissioned 5 July 1881, carried the heaviest armor ever mounted on a ship, but only covering the mid 110 feet of the hull. The armor at the water line consisted of a sandwich of 12" wrought iron, 8" of teak, 12" of wrought iron, and 9" of teak on a 1.5" thick hull. She mounted four 16" muzzle-loading rifles in two turrets mounted in echelon on the hull's midsection, and used a hydraulic reloading system for the guns. One of the few British ironclad battleships ever to fire a shot in anger, at the Bombardment of Alexandria on 11 July 1882. The four 16" guns each fired a 1,684 pound projectile, for a total weight of 6,736 pounds or 3,054.9 kilograms. Per the rules, that would require a gun crew size of 3,055 men. The Inflexible complement was 440. With respect to propellers, the original 4-blade ones were removed and replaced by 2-blade ones. Again, I would recommend deleting the propeller design sequence entirely.
I could also add the British ironclad HMS Captain, completed in January of 1870, but she does have the dubious distinction of being the only British ironclad battleship to sink by capsizing in a peace-time gale.
For resources for designing ships, I have the following, which is not exhaustive. Oscar Parke's British Battleships, Admiral Ballard's The Black Battle Fleet, Hovgaard's Modern History of Warships, Norman Friedman's complete series on US Warship Design in the modern era, also his book Battleship Design and Development, Chapelle's History of the American Sailing Navy and his Search for Speed Under Sail, Archibald's Wooden Fighting Ship in the Royal Navy, Coggin's Ships and Seaman of the American Revolution, a couple of detailed books on US and British Pre-Dreadnought Design, and the Garske series on World War 2 Battleships. As I said, that is not exhaustive. I have design material from the galley on forward.
How many ships are you looking for?
The following is taken from Wooden Fighting Ship in the Royal Navy, by E.H.H. Archibald. The information is turn is taken from an "Abstract of the Royal Navy on the 1st December 1730". This gives the gun crew for each size of gun which the Royal Navy based its manning on.
8 to each Cannon, which would have been a 42 pdr, total of 208 for 26 guns.
6 to each Demi-Cannon, which would have been either a 32 pdr. or 24 pdr., total of 156 for 26 guns.
5 to each Culverin, which would have been an 18 pdr., total of 140 for 28 guns or 130 for 26 guns.
4 to each 12 pdr., for 104 men for 26 guns
3 to each Saker, which would have been a 6 pdr., total of 132 for 44 guns, 108 for 36 guns, and 42 for 14 guns.
2 to each 3 pdr., for 4 men for 2 guns, and 8 men for 4 guns.
A 100-gun ship would carry 26-42 pdr., 28-18 pdr., 44-6 pdr., and 2-3 pdr. for a total gun crew of 484 men, with an additional crew of 296, total 780.
A 90-gun ship would carry 26-32 pdr., 26-18 pdr. 36-6 pdr., and 2-3 pdr. for a total gun crew of 398 men, with an additional crew of 262, total 660.
A 70-gun ship would carry 26-32 pdr., 26-12 pdr., 14-6 pdr. and 4-3 pdr. for a total gun crew of 310 men, with an additional crew of 160, total 470.
The following is taken from T. R. Roosevelt's The Naval War of 1812, downloadable at Project Gutenberg, and is an outstanding description of sailing naval warfare. It gives the crews required for a 44-gun frigate and an 18-gun sloop of war. This would be US Navy manning rates.
The USS Constitution, still extant in Boston, carried at the time of its engagement with the British Frigate, HMS Guerrière, 32 long 24 pdr. and 22-32 pdr. carronades, for a total combined broadside weight of 1472 pounds, or 667.6 kilograms. By the standard of one gun crew member for each one kilogram weight of shot, the Constitution should have had a gun crew of 668 men, not counting the rest of the crew. At the time of her engagement with the Guerrière, she was carrying a crew of 456, a bit in excess of establishment.
Additional Ships, again looking at gun crews alone.
USS Monitor, commissioned 25 February 1862, (151 years ago yesterday), carried two turret-mounted 11" Dahlgren smoothbore guns, firing shot weighing 168 pounds each, total weight of 336 pounds, or 152.4 kilograms. Per the rules, that would require a gun crew of the two guns of 152 men. The total complement of the Monitor was 47.
USS Tecumseh, a single turret monitor of a larger class than the original, commissioned 19 April 1864, mounting in the turret two 15" Dahlgren smoothbore guns firing shot weighing 440 pounds each. The combined weight of 880 pounds, or 399 kilograms would require, per the rules, a gun crew of 399 men. The total complement of the Tecumseh was 100.
HMS Warrior, the first sea-going iron-hulled battleship, commissioned in August of 1861, and still extant. For guns the Warrior carried initially, 26-68 pdr. smoothbores, 10-110 pdr. breechloading rifiles, and 4-70 pounder breechloading rifles, for a total weight of broadside of 3148 pounds, or 1427.7 kilograms. By the rules, that would require a gun crew of 1427 men. However, I also have the sail area for the Warrior, which was originally 48,400 square feet, equal to the sail plan for a sailing 80-gun ship. The rules require a crewman for every 10 square meters of sail, and as the sail would be 4496.6 square meters, that would require a crew for handling sail of 450 men. The total complement of the Warrior was 707 men. In another earlier post, I discussed the Warrior engineering plant. Only the midship section of the Warrior's hull was armored, with 4.5 inches of wrought iron armor bolted to 18 inches of teak bolted to the hull. The weight of the hull without armor was 4,281 tons. Raising the anchor manually required the services of 110 crewmen on the capstan.
HMS Inflexible, commissioned 5 July 1881, carried the heaviest armor ever mounted on a ship, but only covering the mid 110 feet of the hull. The armor at the water line consisted of a sandwich of 12" wrought iron, 8" of teak, 12" of wrought iron, and 9" of teak on a 1.5" thick hull. She mounted four 16" muzzle-loading rifles in two turrets mounted in echelon on the hull's midsection, and used a hydraulic reloading system for the guns. One of the few British ironclad battleships ever to fire a shot in anger, at the Bombardment of Alexandria on 11 July 1882. The four 16" guns each fired a 1,684 pound projectile, for a total weight of 6,736 pounds or 3,054.9 kilograms. Per the rules, that would require a gun crew size of 3,055 men. The Inflexible complement was 440. With respect to propellers, the original 4-blade ones were removed and replaced by 2-blade ones. Again, I would recommend deleting the propeller design sequence entirely.
I could also add the British ironclad HMS Captain, completed in January of 1870, but she does have the dubious distinction of being the only British ironclad battleship to sink by capsizing in a peace-time gale.
For resources for designing ships, I have the following, which is not exhaustive. Oscar Parke's British Battleships, Admiral Ballard's The Black Battle Fleet, Hovgaard's Modern History of Warships, Norman Friedman's complete series on US Warship Design in the modern era, also his book Battleship Design and Development, Chapelle's History of the American Sailing Navy and his Search for Speed Under Sail, Archibald's Wooden Fighting Ship in the Royal Navy, Coggin's Ships and Seaman of the American Revolution, a couple of detailed books on US and British Pre-Dreadnought Design, and the Garske series on World War 2 Battleships. As I said, that is not exhaustive. I have design material from the galley on forward.
How many ships are you looking for?
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Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
See above post.
I don't know where you got your information about GunMaker from, but you are under the wrong impression, and passing it on to others. I don't think that I can say anything more about it here just yet, but I don't want other people reading this to be under the wrong impression about it before it comes out. And there are reasons for players to want to use these rules. Heck, even in MT some of my players would design their own vehicles, robots, etc. I'm sure they'd do the same with weapons too. (I remember one guy made himself a floating chair just to make his duke look more impressive.
)snrdg082102
SOC-14 1K
Hi all,
There is a small matter of needing to get permission to change published material as suggested here. In this case one or more of the following probably need to give the approval: the authors or the articles, any Traveller licensees that have rights to the material, and Marc Miller at Far Future Enterprises (FFE).
IIRC some Traveller material is or was left out of the because of legal issues.
At minimum submit a document, with easily verifiable sources, with the changes deemed necessary to fix the system or submit a design system article that the conforms to the official MT design sequence format that meets the standards of the person submitting the article.
FFE is proabably the best place to start.
Thank you timerover51 for the sources that are used in your replies.
There is a small matter of needing to get permission to change published material as suggested here. In this case one or more of the following probably need to give the approval: the authors or the articles, any Traveller licensees that have rights to the material, and Marc Miller at Far Future Enterprises (FFE).
IIRC some Traveller material is or was left out of the because of legal issues.
At minimum submit a document, with easily verifiable sources, with the changes deemed necessary to fix the system or submit a design system article that the conforms to the official MT design sequence format that meets the standards of the person submitting the article.
FFE is proabably the best place to start.
Thank you timerover51 for the sources that are used in your replies.
I don't know where you got your information about GunMaker from, but you are under the wrong impression, and passing it on to others. I don't think that I can say anything more about it here just yet, but I don't want other people reading this to be under the wrong impression about it before it comes out. And there are reasons for players to want to use these rules. Heck, even in MT some of my players would design their own vehicles, robots, etc. I'm sure they'd do the same with weapons too. (I remember one guy made himself a floating chair just to make his duke look more impressive.
It's mostly going to be used/worked by gamemasters... in the same way that 95% of the MT designs done by my group were done by me to some player's specifications, because they couldn't or wouldn't learn the rules.
Heck, T20 and CT had the same problem (to a lesser degree, tho'.) It was about 75% done by me in my groups.
TNE was 100% me as GM... because I had the spreadsheet skills.
For what I know (probably quite less than Timerover, as I have studied it just to play Wooden Ships and Iron Men and similar games), such large numbers of gunnres were needed only to load the guns, as to fire them quite less crew was needed, and most ships only carried crew to load one boardside at once, not both, as enemy was expected to be just on one side.
Assuming so, any such ship of the age of sail (as the USS Constitution or HMS Gerriere you talk about) could carry just half of its gunnery crew a desctibed in MT rules, being quite closer to reality.
About all those ship examples, while the years they were built are set as TL3, I'd treat them mostly as TL4, as one of the main changes from TL3 to TL4 is the steam engine, and they were so powered. Also see that some of them carried steel armor, also TL4 item, and, while not detailed, I'd also set breachloding guns as TL4.
Of course, TLs are a fuzzy description, as many times lines are blurred...
Also, about gun crews, as I understood it (there's some years since I read it, and was not in depth, and now I'd need to dig for my Challenges to find it again) it refered mainly to smothbored guns, while most those ships caried breachloading ones, so the crew needs should (IMHO) be calculated as TL4+, foresaking this 1 man per kg of boardside.
Hope that hels, instead of adding to the mess...
Another thing to take into account when definig the TLs of the navies (and in many other issues, for what's worth) is that in many planets TL are not evolutioned as in Earth, but many things are known, and so no fawlty conclusions are reached as in the period from the battle of Lissa (when the conclusion was reached that gunnery was obsolete against armored ships and ships would depend again on rams to sink ironclands) to Battle of Tsushima, where gunnery was again seen as the main ship-sinker.
So, I don't envision in Traveller many (if any) TL4 ships with rams, as they existed in 19th century Earth (most American Civil War and contemporary ironclands had it), and the appearence of the central line turreted artillery can be expected to appear earlier than in Earth (probably at TL4 too, while in earth it was closer to TL5).
So, I don't envision in Traveller many (if any) TL4 ships with rams, as they existed in 19th century Earth (most American Civil War and contemporary ironclands had it), and the appearence of the central line turreted artillery can be expected to appear earlier than in Earth (probably at TL4 too, while in earth it was closer to TL5).
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Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Actually, while typically you would only fight on one broadside, there are quite a few cases in Age of Sail warfare where a ship was fighting both broadsides at once. The Royal Navy gun manning basis that I give earlier represents the minimum crew that you would need to effectively fight the gun, and does allow for both broadsides to be fought at once. The big problem with smoothbore carriage guns is getting them back into the gun port after the recoil of the gun upon firing runs it back into the ship.
The sailing ships and the US Civil War monitors all carried muzzle-loading smoothbore guns, although the monitors did use steam propulsion. The only ship with some steel armor was the HMS Inflexible, which had compound armor on the turrets, otherwise, all of the armor is wrought iron in various thicknesses. And while the Warrior did carry 10 Armstrong breech-loading rifles, there were major problems with them and they were replaced by muzzle-loading rifles in 1867. At an engagement with the Japanese in 1863, the Armstrong breech-loading rifles on the ships engaged compiled an accident rate of
The rest of the guns were all muzzle-loading, either rifle or smoothbore, although the guns on the Inflexible and two of the 11" guns on the Temeraire were loaded using a hydraulic loading system. Except for those, I am not sure that you can really distinguish between a muzzle-loading smoothbore or a muzzle-loading rifle, especially as the muzzle-loading rifle projectile is going to weigh about 3 times as much as the smoothbore solid shot.
I know that Tech Levels are more than a bit fuzzy, as I suspect that the technology demonstrated in the Temeraire 11' barbette mounts would greatly surprise the average person of today. While the sighting system is quite basic, the technology of the mount is very impressive.
Actually, the problem at Lissa was that none of the ships really carried any heavy guns except the Italian turret-ram Affondatore, with two 9" muzzle-loading Armstrong rifles in the turret. Given the very close range of the melee, deliberately sought by Tegetthoff, the poor visibility caused by the large amount of coal and black powder smoke (visibility problems caused by large amounts of black powder and coal smoke are never considered in war games), and the great mix of ships engaged, ramming made a lot of sense. At Tsushima, the torpedo was used in lieu of the ram to finish off some of the damaged Russian ships. Gunfire can wreck a ship, but to sink it, you have to let water in. Gunfire is not always the best way of doing that, although magazine explosions can really help.
To get away from the ram, you need a local genius-equivalent of Robert Whitehead, who developed the torpedo. If you do not have that, then either the ram, or a combination of the ram and individuals like William Cushing, who used a launch equipped with a spar torpedo to sink the Confederate ironclad Albemarle, or the crew of the Confederate submarine Hunley, or the Confederate semi-submersible David-class of torpedo boats are needed. Such men are sometimes not easy to find, although if you have a warrior ethos such as the Japanese had in World War 2 and before, it does get a lot easier.
As for the centrally mounted turret ship, the HMS Devastation, which carried two centrally-mounted fore and aft turrets, was laid down 22 November 1869 and completed on 19 April 1873. She carried four 12" muzzle-loading rifles, and was built completely of wrought iron, with simple reciprocating engines and 8 boilers with a steam pressure of about 30 pounds. The engines and boilers occupied a very large portion of her hull, and she did not have exactly the greatest range in the world.
The need for extended cruising range was what kept sails and masts on warships for a long time, until the development of higher-pressure boilers and the compound (double expansion) reciprocating steam engine. There is an interesting discussion in the Parke's book about the failure of the sailing masts in the armored ships Imperieuse and Warspite, the last British armored ships designed with a square rig, see pages 310 and 311.
Just as an observation - Design sequences in MT starts at TL 5. Adding all of the pre-20th Century stuff that timeover 51 is talking about will also require the early tech supplement - Wood & Wind, Steel & Steam by Charles Gannon.
Which should be added to the Players' and Referee's manual - and has been in my manuals.
I never considered trying to print Nautical Force Command (NFC), precisely for the issues that snrdg082102 addressed.
NFC falls under the same category as my retypset "4th Edition" MT manuals. It was for my personal use.
On the other hand, the Robots Manual got done and it started out as a pet project, so I suppose that NFC could become available if there was both interest & permission granted from Marc Miller for the Challenge articles (Wet Navy plus Wood & Wind, Steel & Steam) & Terry McInnes (for the unpublished Advanced Character Generation for Sailors). I hadn't given it serious thought because Marc was finally getting off the pot with T5.
To make NFC, all I did was format the Wet Navy articles into a standard MT format and voila! a nice counterpoint to COACC. I have done this with a number of items - Grand Explorations, Medical Digest, Alien Manuals, Library Data, Secret Squirrel Agencies, etc.
And there is nothing preventing anyone else from doing the same thing for their personal use - hell, I loaded up a MT Style Book template up in the file library - I'll be adding templates for character generation and charts as I break them up to fit under the 195kb file limitation, if there is any interest.
I know there are issues with the design sequence. But just like the errata, there is a need to look at what is already available, and see what is consistently broken within the design sequence. At that point, we can make improvements - and possibly a supplement.
To do that, someone (or a group of someones) would to have to design some small craft (both muscle powered and powered by whatever power system is available for that TL - this means paying very close attention to the technology charts esp. the power generation ones), small warships, large warships, small civilian craft, large civilian craft. Everything from a canoe to a supertanker to a liberty ship to a dreadnaught to a carrier, so we can see what works & what doesn't.
Then test the surface combat system.
Then test the surface to air combat system.
And accept the fact that they more than likely will not mesh - which is why this is an RPG and not a simulation - we have GMs - make them work.
Thoughts?
See if Marc will allow NFC as a freebie in the same mode as MT Robots.
As I said, most of my scarce knowledge about ships from Age of Sail (and so TL3 ships) come from playing wargames. I'm not sure how accurate is that, but in the cited Wooden Ships and Iron Men, you can fire both boardsides at once, but you may only have one ready to fire for next turn, and one of your boardsides remains unopperative until you can dedicate your crew to it (not firing for one turn). In any case, by applying this you have numbers closer to their real world equivalents...
As for TLs, while MT:RM (page 23) puts the change from TL3 to TL4 about 1900, in fact most of the TL4 items shown in the tables in page 28/29 of the RC appeared on the second half of XIX century, and its equivalence would be more, IMHO, Victorian age, while TL5 would be WWI and TL6 WWII to Korea.
Specifically in naval terms, I'd set TL4 from the appearence of the steam engine to the developement of the Dreadnought, and TL5 from the Dreadnought to the Carriers age. Purely my oppinion, of course.
BTW: when in my earlier post I said Smothbore Guns, I meant muzzle-loading. Sorry if this lead to confusion, but as I already said, my knowledge on the theme is not extensive, and while I use not to have problems with english, it's still not my native language and sometimes I may confuse precise words.
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snrdg082102
SOC-14 1K
Morning (PST) McPerth,
Speaking for myself even I have problems with American English, don't worry about yours.
Speaking for myself even I have problems with American English, don't worry about yours.
snrdg082102
SOC-14 1K
timerover51,
I've taken time to think about how to present the following silly questions based on:
Are all of the Marine Power Transmissions going to be dropped or is the screw the only one?
How is someone going to design a battleship similar to the Iowa-Class or a majority of water going vehicles if the screw is dropped?
I've taken time to think about how to present the following silly questions based on:
Are all of the Marine Power Transmissions going to be dropped or is the screw the only one?
How is someone going to design a battleship similar to the Iowa-Class or a majority of water going vehicles if the screw is dropped?
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