What's in a fleet?
- Thread starter Scarecrow
- Start date
Ben W Bell
SOC-14 1K
A whole fleet, or just the carrier squadron? A fleet comprises multiple squadrons comprised of many different vessels. If you have TA#7 Fighting Ships it gives you that level of information in there.
A subsector fleet is all the squadrons within that subsector, and a sector fleet the combination of all those. Special purpose fleets (such as an invasion fleet) can be built up of ships and squadrons taken from anywhere if needed.
The best bet is to work out your squadrons, and how your fleet is made up (subsector level, special purpose, makeshift fleet) and add squadrons to it.
A subsector fleet is all the squadrons within that subsector, and a sector fleet the combination of all those. Special purpose fleets (such as an invasion fleet) can be built up of ships and squadrons taken from anywhere if needed.
The best bet is to work out your squadrons, and how your fleet is made up (subsector level, special purpose, makeshift fleet) and add squadrons to it.
Ben W Bell
SOC-14 1K
Let me know what you think, I've had very little feedback on the issue.
Ben W Bell
SOC-14 1K
I liked it
Mr. Bell, I liked TA#7 as well. Stars for you! (Metaphorically, at least.)
Hey Scarecrow, I asked a similar question a while back here in the Fleet, titled something like "Traveller Equivalent of a Carrier Battlegroup." You might find it useful, but you'll have to look* because I don't know how to link to pages on COTI.
*I'll resurrect it.
Hey Scarecrow, I asked a similar question a while back here in the Fleet, titled something like "Traveller Equivalent of a Carrier Battlegroup." You might find it useful, but you'll have to look* because I don't know how to link to pages on COTI.
*I'll resurrect it.
snrdg082102
SOC-14 1K
Hello Scarecrow,
As has been indicated a fleet is composed of many types of vessels. Further, a fleet is designed to meet requirements that project the power of the government that built them.
A basic fleet, as indicated, will have squadrons of capital ships (battleships, carriers), escorts (warships not deignated as capital), special purpose (battlerider), and auxiliaries (munition, supplies, medical).
Ben W Bell's TA is a good place to start and should cover what you need.
As has been indicated a fleet is composed of many types of vessels. Further, a fleet is designed to meet requirements that project the power of the government that built them.
A basic fleet, as indicated, will have squadrons of capital ships (battleships, carriers), escorts (warships not deignated as capital), special purpose (battlerider), and auxiliaries (munition, supplies, medical).
Ben W Bell's TA is a good place to start and should cover what you need.
To link to pages on CotI
1) find the page yer looking for
2) copy the url* by selecting it and copying or cutting it
3) paste it into your reply.
http://www.travellerrpg.com/cgi-bin/Trav/CotI/Discuss/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000285;p=1
4) if you want a nicer looking link, go to the full reply form and click on URL
Battlegroup postie thingie
HTH,
Casey
* URL - Uniform Resource Locator; in this case the http://www.thispage.com/thisfile.xyz etc.
1) find the page yer looking for
2) copy the url* by selecting it and copying or cutting it
3) paste it into your reply.
http://www.travellerrpg.com/cgi-bin/Trav/CotI/Discuss/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000285;p=1
4) if you want a nicer looking link, go to the full reply form and click on URL
Battlegroup postie thingie
HTH,
Casey
* URL - Uniform Resource Locator; in this case the http://www.thispage.com/thisfile.xyz etc.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Crow, is your question what is in a real world carrier battlegroup or a Traveller Universe fleet?
Scarecrow
SOC-14 1K
Ben,
I printed out, and had a good read of TA7 last night and my hat's off to you, sir! What an excellent issue. I've had it sat on my drive since it was released and I only really got it for the pretty pictures of spaceships (I'm like that, I'm afraid) and never really read it.
It was EXACTLY what I was looking for and the section describing what each vessel type is and what they're for and what size they are roughly was absolutely invaluable.
I've got a pet project underway at the moment to build 1:1 scale block models of classic sci-fi ships to get a pretty accurate measurement of their DTonnage. One thing that this issue allows me to do is put blocks representing the volume of the various Traveller ships against them for comparison. Pointless, but things like that entertain me. =)
Y'know what would also be excellent is a version of this issue detailing merchant shipping. Ever considered it?
Many thanks,
Crow
I printed out, and had a good read of TA7 last night and my hat's off to you, sir! What an excellent issue. I've had it sat on my drive since it was released and I only really got it for the pretty pictures of spaceships (I'm like that, I'm afraid) and never really read it.
It was EXACTLY what I was looking for and the section describing what each vessel type is and what they're for and what size they are roughly was absolutely invaluable.
I've got a pet project underway at the moment to build 1:1 scale block models of classic sci-fi ships to get a pretty accurate measurement of their DTonnage. One thing that this issue allows me to do is put blocks representing the volume of the various Traveller ships against them for comparison. Pointless, but things like that entertain me. =)
Y'know what would also be excellent is a version of this issue detailing merchant shipping. Ever considered it?
Many thanks,
Crow
Ben W Bell
SOC-14 1K
Well thank you for the praise. I introduced the CarRon into the universe there as before it was never considered as having a distinct squadron make up of its own and was always just thrown into a cruiser squadron.
Bear in mind some of the details in TA#7 are contradictory to earlier Traveller supplements. Under what I have written the Kuinur would not be a battlecruiser for example. I tried to reconcile as best I could and introduced a few things where I thought made sense. Also I wrote all that stuff from the point of view of a military planner, not a games player. So while we may think of things like fighters not being much use because of how the combat system is designed, a military planner in the universe may think of things differently.
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
Actually Carriers had their own squadrons in Fighting ships of the Shattered Imperium. (MT) Though in that squadrons tended to be half sized compared to Sup-9 and other canon resources. (Naval budget cutbacks following the fifth frontier war?) In T20, you can actually swamp a captial ships defenses with fighters, though don't expect many to make it back to the carrier.
Also don't expect the carrier to survive the Meson Spinals that have no real use against the fighters but can hit you at way more than 20 Strategic hexes. Fusion Armament seems to be best on a Fighter. (On a typical fighter I have seen designed in T20 the sensors aren't any good beyond fusion gun range anyway.)
Cheers,
Crow </font>[/QUOTE]
Also don't expect the carrier to survive the Meson Spinals that have no real use against the fighters but can hit you at way more than 20 Strategic hexes. Fusion Armament seems to be best on a Fighter. (On a typical fighter I have seen designed in T20 the sensors aren't any good beyond fusion gun range anyway.)
Aww hell. I don't care about that. It works for me.
Well, I like fighters simply because they look kewl and also because it allows players to participate in space battles on a personal level.
Cheers,
Crow </font>[/QUOTE]
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
The Kinunir isn't a Battle Cruiser by anyone's canon rules. (Well unless you count small ship Traveller.) Personally I think it was called that as a cover name. Like Tanks were the cover name forthe British Landships program. The term Tank just stuck. I think the Kinunir is a Top Secret Commando insertion platform. (That had several design flaws so was discontinued and in MTU was replaced by a similar sized drop ship for delivering a Platoon of marines. (Like the Rodger Young in Starship Troopers.) With a 50T Troop transport for a retrival boat.
The composition of a fleet is determined by quite a lot of things, and pretty much all of them are circumstantial.
Level of threat
Type of threat
Number of fleets needed
Number and type of ships available
Strength of individual ships
Personnel available
Power of owning nation
Money devoted to fleets
Political climate (war, peace, various places in between)
If I have to have at least 3 fleets to complete 3 objectives at a time, and I've only got 10 ships, then there's a real good chance I'm going to have fleets consisting of 3 or 4 ships apiece. I'm usually a balancer, so I will try and even out the powers of the ships as best I can between those fleets, but not everyone does that.
One must also understand the difference between "fleet" and "task force". Most of the time, when some one says "fleet", they actually mean "task force". A Fleet is a large collection of ships, responsible for a large area or space. A fleet will have ALL the tools available that can be had: carriers, battleships, cruisers, PTMs, mine hunters, etc. Fleets are broken up into battle groups, which are broken up into task forces.
A battle group is usually like a miniature fleet, and is responsible for a smaller portion of the fleet's AoR (area of responsibility).
A Task Force is composed specifically for a particular mission. Deny the sea to the enemy here. Take that beach. Clear the sky. A Task force will go without one arm in favor of another, due to the anticipated threat. For instance, a task force tasked with making a landing will have a preponderance of amphibious ships, perhaps some extra battleships, and probably have no submarines and other anti-ship protections. A previous task force should have already cleansed the area of threats to friendly ships, so that the landing can take place.
A task force centered around a supercarrier is probably intended to control air space. It will have 1 or 2 carriers (maybe 3 or 4 or even more if the threat level is high enough) and SAM ships at its core. It will have picket SAM ships. It will fly air patrols. The fighters will probably be stealthed or not radiating, to make them harder to spot, and have powerful spotting aircraft to guide the fighters in to incoming threats.
In modern day, a task force that contains a carrier is going to have anti-sub vessels as well. You don't want to lose something as valuable as a carrier, so you have to treat such a task force as a battle group. Indeed, you don't really break up a carrier battle group.
A modern American CVBG tends to contain 1 carrier, 3 CGs or DDGs for air defense, 4 DDs or FFs for sub-hunting and picketing, and 1 or 2 SSNs for anti-sub and anti-surface. The carrier takes care of most threats with its aircraft. During the Reagan years, when we had ships aplenty, you could easily double the number of subordinate ships that protected the carrier, but nowadays, there are simply not enough ships to provide what I would consider to be adequate protection for the carrier. What keeps our carriers safe is the fact that so far our enemies haven't had the fleet power to muster any significant threat. If we were to go to war with France or the whole EU, the story would be different. Imagine the Soviets with a strong economy and the ability to stay ahead in the tech race, compared with our massive downsizing program.
Most other countries do not have world-wide fleets. We have like 7 fleets to cover the world with, most other nations have only their home waters to defend, and have thrown less money into the water as well, since we are there to protect them. Not many have carriers. Their fleets consist mostly of diesel subs and patrol boats and that's about it. But they will still compose task forces in the same way: based on the mission and the threat.
Composing a task force in Traveller is a bit more difficult, because the Imperium and its major rivals have enormous fleet budgets. There is little that isn't out of bounds. 100 battleships is a drop in the bucket. So it's going todepend on what you've got in mind.
Solomani Rim War? Frontier War? Interstellar War? Local brushfire war? In any case, determine the level of the threat posed, and the Imperium sends in a more powerful force. If the enemy has a preponderance of battleships, then maybe a matching preponderance of bigger battleships, or of carriers will be the rock that beats the scissors. Really, you're going to have to figure out what's going on, maybe playtest it a couple times, to figure out what's a good composition for a task force.
Level of threat
Type of threat
Number of fleets needed
Number and type of ships available
Strength of individual ships
Personnel available
Power of owning nation
Money devoted to fleets
Political climate (war, peace, various places in between)
If I have to have at least 3 fleets to complete 3 objectives at a time, and I've only got 10 ships, then there's a real good chance I'm going to have fleets consisting of 3 or 4 ships apiece. I'm usually a balancer, so I will try and even out the powers of the ships as best I can between those fleets, but not everyone does that.
One must also understand the difference between "fleet" and "task force". Most of the time, when some one says "fleet", they actually mean "task force". A Fleet is a large collection of ships, responsible for a large area or space. A fleet will have ALL the tools available that can be had: carriers, battleships, cruisers, PTMs, mine hunters, etc. Fleets are broken up into battle groups, which are broken up into task forces.
A battle group is usually like a miniature fleet, and is responsible for a smaller portion of the fleet's AoR (area of responsibility).
A Task Force is composed specifically for a particular mission. Deny the sea to the enemy here. Take that beach. Clear the sky. A Task force will go without one arm in favor of another, due to the anticipated threat. For instance, a task force tasked with making a landing will have a preponderance of amphibious ships, perhaps some extra battleships, and probably have no submarines and other anti-ship protections. A previous task force should have already cleansed the area of threats to friendly ships, so that the landing can take place.
A task force centered around a supercarrier is probably intended to control air space. It will have 1 or 2 carriers (maybe 3 or 4 or even more if the threat level is high enough) and SAM ships at its core. It will have picket SAM ships. It will fly air patrols. The fighters will probably be stealthed or not radiating, to make them harder to spot, and have powerful spotting aircraft to guide the fighters in to incoming threats.
In modern day, a task force that contains a carrier is going to have anti-sub vessels as well. You don't want to lose something as valuable as a carrier, so you have to treat such a task force as a battle group. Indeed, you don't really break up a carrier battle group.
A modern American CVBG tends to contain 1 carrier, 3 CGs or DDGs for air defense, 4 DDs or FFs for sub-hunting and picketing, and 1 or 2 SSNs for anti-sub and anti-surface. The carrier takes care of most threats with its aircraft. During the Reagan years, when we had ships aplenty, you could easily double the number of subordinate ships that protected the carrier, but nowadays, there are simply not enough ships to provide what I would consider to be adequate protection for the carrier. What keeps our carriers safe is the fact that so far our enemies haven't had the fleet power to muster any significant threat. If we were to go to war with France or the whole EU, the story would be different. Imagine the Soviets with a strong economy and the ability to stay ahead in the tech race, compared with our massive downsizing program.
Most other countries do not have world-wide fleets. We have like 7 fleets to cover the world with, most other nations have only their home waters to defend, and have thrown less money into the water as well, since we are there to protect them. Not many have carriers. Their fleets consist mostly of diesel subs and patrol boats and that's about it. But they will still compose task forces in the same way: based on the mission and the threat.
Composing a task force in Traveller is a bit more difficult, because the Imperium and its major rivals have enormous fleet budgets. There is little that isn't out of bounds. 100 battleships is a drop in the bucket. So it's going todepend on what you've got in mind.
Solomani Rim War? Frontier War? Interstellar War? Local brushfire war? In any case, determine the level of the threat posed, and the Imperium sends in a more powerful force. If the enemy has a preponderance of battleships, then maybe a matching preponderance of bigger battleships, or of carriers will be the rock that beats the scissors. Really, you're going to have to figure out what's going on, maybe playtest it a couple times, to figure out what's a good composition for a task force.
I've always assumed that the ___Ron organization was then grouped together into task groups, usually within the numbered fleet.
A Task group might break into task lines across squadrons...
So, the TG Regina might be
1 Batron (12 BB)
2 Heavy Cruron (2x12CA)
1 Frontier CruRon (12CF)
3 Light CruRon (3x12 CL)
9 DesRon (9x12 DD)
9 EsRon (9x24 ES & FF)
9 Scoutron (9x 36 S & CF)
1 AssaultRon (12 Assault Ships)
1 CarRon (12 CV)
1 CommoRon (36xSCF)
and be assigned into several lines by the fleet commander:
Command Line: 1 BB, 3CA, 3CL, 7 DD, 7FF, 7 ES, 3 fast couriers, 3 Assault, 3 CV
Wypoc line: 2 CF, 2DD, 4 Es, 4 CF
Heavy Response line: 2 BB, 2CA, 2CL, 5DD, 6 Aslt.
Commo Line: 24 SCF fast scout couriers... 200 T J6's... (rest of ron in floating pool)
A Task group might break into task lines across squadrons...
So, the TG Regina might be
1 Batron (12 BB)
2 Heavy Cruron (2x12CA)
1 Frontier CruRon (12CF)
3 Light CruRon (3x12 CL)
9 DesRon (9x12 DD)
9 EsRon (9x24 ES & FF)
9 Scoutron (9x 36 S & CF)
1 AssaultRon (12 Assault Ships)
1 CarRon (12 CV)
1 CommoRon (36xSCF)
and be assigned into several lines by the fleet commander:
Command Line: 1 BB, 3CA, 3CL, 7 DD, 7FF, 7 ES, 3 fast couriers, 3 Assault, 3 CV
Wypoc line: 2 CF, 2DD, 4 Es, 4 CF
Heavy Response line: 2 BB, 2CA, 2CL, 5DD, 6 Aslt.
Commo Line: 24 SCF fast scout couriers... 200 T J6's... (rest of ron in floating pool)
Ben W Bell
SOC-14 1K
Yes. Two or more ships together are a squadron. Multiple squadrons form a fleet.
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