Traveller, The Rise of Empire: A Naval Design, Procurement and Command Quest

If we go for a testbed carrier I don't see a reason not to just go for a 90-ton attack craft; it's the size of most of our landing shuttles and presumably we can modify that design to just carry weapons instead of people and slap a bit more armor on it.

With regards to current building:
-bring in a single IC for refit now.

For future build:
-refit ICs in blocks of two until complete
-additional DSS
-2xMMV to serve as wing leaders and more capable long range strike and mission craft for protecting scouting runs and power projection as needed. Also can probably take care of the marine landing capability. If necessary see about a dedicated lander variant.

MMV have a shedload of particle weapons so I can't imagine that will displease some of our sponsors.

90 tons is kinda crap for small craft though. 30 and 20 tons are the fastest but can only carry 1 capital grade laser or torpedo. 40 is still fast and can carry two capital grade lasers, two torpedoes, or a particle beam barbette. 60 is the largest a small craft can be while still being able to reach small craft speeds, but does have the same weapon load as the 40. And 100 is the largest small craft possible, gets the most health and weapon loads, and is only 10 tons more than the 90.

I may or may not have found some notes from a campaign I was in.

Rat King said:

-2xMMV to serve as wing leaders and more capable long range strike and mission craft for protecting scouting runs and power projection as needed. Also can probably take care of the marine landing capability. If necessary see about a dedicated lander variant.

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Yup, that depends on how much marines we need to be able to land. If it's just a couple, multi-roles are enough to cover that requirement, if we need to be able to land hundreds, then we'll need something specialized, perhaps a streamlined design that is able to land without shuttles.

WallFly said:

The sizes picked for the small craft are for certain breakpoints. Mostly speed and weapon load capabilities. Thoughts?

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Ehhh... I'd rather not build something that is meant just for testing and wouldn't be useful as an actual craft. 1K for a carrier seems as it would too small to use its tonnage efficiently.

I mean, most IRL countries in the interwar years/when building their first carriers only got up to about 20ish aircraft at first. The main points for the proposal are, in order of importance;
-to find out if small craft/carrier doctrine is viable
-to find good sizes for our small craft
-to see if we can use drone/remote control for small craft

And keeping it at 1k keeps it 'cheap' while also allowing for refits in the future. I'm not saying this is something we should do no matter what, but experimenting during peace time gets us ready for war time in a far less painful manner.

Edit:
As for landing ships, that's a discussion with the ground pounders to iron out. What size formation do we want to assault land (land while taking retaliatory/hot zone fire), do we want to insert special forces or pathfinders before hand, is a landing ship going to act as a semi-permanent base once it's on the ground or immediately try to come back to the surface, do we even want to land ships or a massive amount of assault shuttles/drop pods?

Edit2:
For carrier wing sizes I was wrong. The average was 25-30 planes. USS Langley had 36, Hosho had 15, HMS Argus had 18, Bearn had 32. My bad.

This quest has been my first introduction to Traveller, and so I am rather unfamiliar with the system and rules. I've been trying to read up on what I can access online. I'm not sure how relevant these rules are to the quest but they may serve as a guide. I'd be glad to receive further guidance from the QM. From this website it would seem that drone fighter craft are certainly detailed in the rules - however at our tech level are not feasible.

We seem to be at TL 8 with limited access to some experimental TL9 tech (such as the sensors on our surveyors). The above link detailing small craft design seems to suggest even at TL9 drone craft could only be remotely-operated in a non-combat role, with TL11 providing remote-operation in a combat environment, and TL12 beginning to field autonomous drones (non-combat).

This website would seem to suggest that fighter craft in the Traveller setting are usually within the 10 to 25 ton range, with 10 tons being considered a 'light fighter', 15 tons a 'medium fighter', and 20 tons a 'heavy fighter'. This website has various examples of Traveller ship designs, including an escort carrier of 3000 tons with a capacity of 40 10-ton light fighters.

Again, I have no idea whether any of these resources are of any particular relevance to the quest, but I found them personally illuminating and worth sharing.

The idea of a carrier design does intrigue me for our Home Space Warfare Service. If our civilan masters wish us to design a ship with marine landing capability then perhaps we could consider some sort of multi-role assault carrier / LHD-type ship. Perhaps a 3000-4000 tons-ish design with the capacity to launch and recover dropships, landers, and fighter craft / gunships to support an opposed landing. Fitted with defensive armament, limited offensive armament, and Ortillery to support landings. Of course we would seek support and engagement from our colleagues in the City Milita when it comes to the design and doctrine in employing such a ship.

To my knowledge, the battalion is usually considered the smallest size of unit able to operate independently, with it's embedded HQ and Support company elements, so I'd have thought that would be the size of embarked unit we would be aiming towards for this marine landing ship.

It would be good to verify whether fighter-craft or missiles or torpedos are better to focus on, but with the budget cuts I'm tempted to support solutions that are proven to work. In this case, I assume those would be missiles. Or rather, particle beams with missiles to round-up the weapon loadouts on bigger ships. That said:

WallFly said:

The main points for the proposal are, in order of importance;
-to find out if small craft/carrier doctrine is viable
-to find good sizes for our small craft
-to see if we can use drone/remote control for small craft

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We could test the last two points via just building fighter-craft, without the carrier itself. That could be useful as a way to ensure that the leftover budget funds are not wasted.

Tallhart said:

To my knowledge, the battalion is usually considered the smallest size of unit able to operate independently, with it's embedded HQ and Support company elements, so I'd have thought that would be the size of embarked unit we would be aiming towards for this marine landing ship.

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Battalion is a lot of soldiers, I don't think it would be possible to fit them on 1K ships. Perhaps we could make do with company-sized landing forces? As the Space Warfare Service we're interested to take on the least number of marines feasible.

I'm not sure strike craft v missiles v torpedoes is necessarily a "which is absolutely better" situation.

From what I remember Section saying missiles rely on attrition and basically just sort of sandpapering the enemy down with ye olde Macross missile massacre kind of stuff. Torpedoes have a much bigger punch and so in theory a couple torpedo hits can decide an engagement or let a smaller craft punch above it's weight by giving it some pocket firepower.

Fighters are a bit of a question mark but considering they are probably carrying the same weapons we put on everything else, I presume the benefit is "flooding the zone" with targets and making it more likely for both fighter and cap ship ordinance to get through.

Magnificate said:

We could test the last two points via just building fighter-craft, without the carrier itself. That could be useful as a way to ensure that the leftover budget funds are not wasted.

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Where would we store/service small craft that we make? If we didn't make a carrier or even a small craft station, we would be limited to two outcomes, neither of which would mesh well with actual carrier or combat operations;
-Make all small craft streamlined so they can be maintained and launched in atmo. This might be viable for 'bombers' and assault shuttles, but would any other type benefit from always being streamlined?
-Keep small craft external on any station that can house them. Would we be able to prep strike packages in a timely manner? What about proper maintenance, after all they can't be stored internal where there is less risk to maintenance crews?

At the very least a station that can launch and recover small craft in a combat situation is required to figure out their viability and actual use cases.

[X] Plan New Things
-[X] Something else entirely (Write in)-A 1k test bed carrier. While it is understood that multiple goals are currently present, the carrier could fulfill at least one or two of them; Strengthening of the fleet and/or home system defense. And at 1k tons it would allow for a 'cheap' test-bed to discover the viability of a carrier and small craft force. The target ship should at minimum be capable of 2 jumps and carry multiple different size small craft to gauge the viability of various sizes. Preference would be given to drone or remote operation capability of the small craft.
-[X] 1x Deep Space Surveyor, 2x Interstellar Surveyors, 1x Flotilla Support Ship, Utilize remaining yard space and funds to refit Interstellar Cruisers to Block II configurations
-[X] Yes, but every operation requires authorization from the highest levels.
-[X] A flotilla support ship, two DSS ships and two IS ships for maximum capability.

Carrier because of previous arguments, although changed to reflect the fact that this thing won't have many small craft anyway. The combination of new builds, refits, and force organizations to modernize the fleet and get us two equal expedition flotillas while making sure we still have a FSS for our combat forces.

[X] Plan IC Refits & Scouting Service
-[X] Immediate: 1x Interstellar Cruiser block II (1k tons, ??MCr) – Range 2+2 with miniaturized J-Drive & drop tank fittings. Use leftover space to improve crew comfort and aim for longer operation time.
-[X] 11 Months: 1x Deep Space Surveyor (500 tons, circa 200MCr.)
-[X] 11 Months: 1x Marine Lander (1k tons, ??MCr) – Optimize for number of marines. Consult with the Militia whether the design can be streamlined to allow deployment after landing or whether shuttles are required.
-[X] 11 Months: Refit 4x Interstellar Cruisers to block II (4k tons, ??MCr)
-[X] 11 Months: If there are enough funds to construct a multi-mission vessel, do so. Range 2+2 with miniaturized J-Drives & drop tank fittings. Present designs between 2K and 3K.
-[X] 11 Months: If there are not enough funds, earmark them for the next period or reach out to corporate interests for them to co-sponsor segments of modular station same as in Deep Hope, with the intention to put in either Heimdall or one of the about-to-be surveyed system.
-[X] Scouting: Yes, but every operation requires authorization from the highest levels.
-[X] Scouting: A flotilla support ship, two DSS ships and two IS ships for maximum capability.

Can't put in exact numbers since most of these ships would be new designs. Marine Lander is subject to being cut from the plan if it turns out the Militia is OK with being able to land just a couple of marines. Scouting Service would get one full flotilla for deep-space missions, with us having two remaining DSSs for various odd jobs or low-risk astronomical observations. The goal is for them to have two full flotillas, but that can wait until next budget term.

I think the simplest thing is to just build multiple classes of strike class rather than try to cram everything into one craft hull. Really you don't need more than 2 strike craft, in my mind one would be armed primarily with laser or other energy weapons and a missile compliment while the other would be dedicated towards delivering torpedo payloads. Every weapon system has its usefulness so if you can't get every single one on a ship just build more ships.

The reason why I think we shouldn't just build one or the other is I worry how efficient torpedo focused strike craft would be in a defensive role against other strike craft, getting through whatever point defense screen the enemy has is presumably hard enough not to mention if they have defensive strike craft of their own. Of course more 'defensive' focused energy weapon craft wouldn't have as much alpha strike power as something carrying a nuclear torpedo but it's still able to cause damage and presumably work in joint missions with the torpedo craft to defend it from other strike craft.

[X] Plan: Staggered Refit
-[X] Immediate: Construct one new Block II - aim to get to range 2+2 with the new miniaturized J-Drive, drop tank fittings, and improve crew comfort for longer cruises. Replace engines with upgrade to M6. Napkin math says this will cost roughly 500 MCreds
-[X] 11 Months: 1x DSS (500 tons, 200 MCr)
-[X] 11 months: Refit existing Interstellar Cruisers to Block II two at a time to maintain active ships (2k tons, 150 MCred/refit); continue until refits complete as budget allows. Prioritize refits over outpost construction if budget constraints kick in.
-[X] 11 months: start construction on station segments for outpost in Heimdall or at Staging Point.
-[X] 11 months: Review revised MMV design and investigate what a dedicate marine lander variant built on the same chassis might look like. Plan for construction of MMV when funds allow.
-[X] Scouting: Yes, but every operation requires authorization from the highest levels.
-[X] Scouting: A flotilla support ship, two DSS ships and two IS ships for maximum capability.

Reasoning:

This is me doing some math and seeing what the costs are likely to be; the existing J-drive costs 120 on the IC and the existing M-Drive is about 9 Mcr, so I imagine the revised variant will be about the same to tear out and replace, plus the newer variants are likely to be a bit more expensive. Rounding to 150 Mcreds to be safe on this. It's gonna be pricey to refit the whole fleet. If we estimate a six-month refit time, that's about year and a half to get four of them complete at a cost of 600 Mcreds per year (more if it's a three month refit period, etc). So that leaves us 1200 Mcreds to play with.

DSS gives us another 200 Mcreds gone. Down to 1k.

With slightly increased costs for the new tech, I imagine the revised ICs are going to cost something like 500 Mcreds each. Laying one down will cost 500 Mcreds; we have 500 Mcreds left to play with. Not sure what to do with these; another IC? Or station segments? Or more survey craft?

As one of the long-time proponents of the MMV program, I would like to lay one down, but with the new budgetary restraints this might have to be pushed to next fiscal year after the refits are mostly complete, as the revised MMV is about 1350 Mcreds and I presume we can't start paying for it this year and finish next year. Expensive and considering the new budget, likely to be where we top out in terms of capital craft. So in lieu of laying one down, I'm asking for a review of the design and a possible lander alternative built on the same chassis.

If this math is wrong, please let me know, oh mighty QuestMaster.

Rat King said:

However, I think refitting 4x cruisers at once leaves us vulnerable in that months where those cruisers are laid up in the yards; ideally we don't want more than a third of our combat craft in the yards at any one time, so I think refitting two at a time until all ships complete Block II upgrades and refits is a better idea, so that we have four cruisers on active service and able to respond when needed. We are, after all, the only line of defense for Home and our allies.

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We've got 8 ICs total and when space for refits becomes available the Monitor & 9th IC would be there to fill the defensive needs. The reasoning is that we want to finish the refits faster. But, overall the difference is not that significant.

Rat King said:

As one of the long-time proponents of the MMV program, I am also pushing to lay down two of the class to become wing leaders and more capable combatants and to provide proof-of-concept for the MMV chassis; I'd like to design a dedicated lander built around the same basic hull once the first ones are off the docks.

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With the change of the doctrine, there's no longer a reason for me to oppose the MMV. However, with the different budget, when before I was pushing for 4K, now there're reasons to make them smaller, so I'd like to see some selection to choose from the final designs. As for marines, I would get small marine presence with shuttles on multi-roles and, unless the Militia is fine with just a couple of shuttles, decidated landing craft. Around 1K crafts, because we don't want to put all our eggs in one basket during opposed landings.

Magnificate said:

We've got 8 ICs total and when space for refits becomes available the Monitor & 9th IC would be there to fill the defensive needs. The reasoning is that we want to finish the refits faster. But, overall the difference is not that significant.

With the change of the doctrine, there's no longer a reason for me to oppose the MMV. However, with the different budget, when before I was pushing for 4K, now there're reasons to make them smaller, so I'd like to see some selection to choose from the final designs. As for marines, I would get small marine presence with shuttles on multi-roles and, unless the Militia is fine with just a couple of shuttles, decidated landing craft. Around 1K crafts, because we don't want to put all our eggs in one basket during opposed landings.

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I've revised my plan based on some napkin math on costs; MMV is not going to fit into the same year we do refits, since the refits are probably going to cost about 130-150 MCreds per ship, the Block II itself is about 500 MCreds, and the MMV is about 1350 MCreds (the flotilla support ship is only slightly cheaper at 1250 Mcreds). So if we want to do an MMV or similarly sized lander, it'll have to be next fiscal year (also depends on how long the refit cycle takes since that also impacts amount of spending per year).

The argument for a larger landing ship is that it can carry more troops at once and can be a better central hub for logistics to provide supplies for landed marines, although that also then asks what the mission of the lander is - in-and-out fast landing operations to hit targets with smaller groups of soldiers or do rescue ops or to support a long-term landing and the associated logistical crunch. We'll have different needs for those missions.

The smaller lander would probably fit the first mission profile better but would struggle to support a longer-term operation.

Not opposed to the idea of a 1k lander, just thinking outloud about what we wanna do with it.

@4WheelSword is there an estimate on how long the refits will take and total cost per vessel? That'll impact my final plan. I'm assuming we also can't roll over costs (like pay for half of a project in one year and then half the next year)?

Rat King said:

I've revised my plan based on some napkin math on costs; MMV is not going to fit into the same year we do refits, since the refits are probably going to cost abou 130-150 MCreds and the MMV is about 1350 MCreds (the flotilla support ship is only slightly cheaper at 1250 Mcreds). So if we want to do an MMV or similarly sized lander, it'll have to be next fiscal year.

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In the end, we're both aiming for full IC refit and a couple of multi-roles to be built in the next few years, so it's just a question of what gets worked on first. Here I'm tempted to put off the first MMV until after we build the first lander, because that way the Militia won't insist on putting hordes of marines on multi-roles, making it possible for them to lead ICs into battle. Speaking of, are there dedicated command & control systems? Perhaps we would want to put them on the MMV?

Rat King said:

The argument for a larger landing ship is that it can carry more troops at once and can be a better central hub for logistics to provide supplies for landed marines, although that also then asks what the mission of the lander is - in-and-out fast landing operations to hit targets with smaller groups of soldiers or do rescue ops or to support a long-term landing and the associated logistical crunch. We'll have different needs for those missions.

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Reasonable. Here, we want to hear Militia's input. It could be that their requirements aren't to big and multi-roles + 1K landers would suffice. We're still Space Warfare and we want to build an entire new scouting flotilla and more infrastructure in the near future.

Magnificate said:

In the end, we're both aiming for full IC refit and a couple of multi-roles to be built in the next few years, so it's just a question of what gets worked on first. Here I'm tempted to put off the first MMV until after we build the first lander, because that way the Militia won't insist on putting hordes of marines on multi-roles, making it possible for them to lead ICs into battle. Speaking of, are there dedicated command & control systems? Perhaps we would want to put them on the MMV?

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The good thing about the MMV is that they're designed to be somewhat modular so we can tweak the design to make variants - dedicated CnC craft, for example.

We'd have to look at the design and see what works and see what exactly the ground forces want out of lander. If they're ok with a 1-2k lander we could dust off the 2k variant we designed a little while ago.

Rat King said:

The good thing about the MMV is that they're designed to be somewhat modular so we can tweak the design to make variants - dedicated CnC craft, for example.

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Sure, as long as we don't make too many variants, simplicity is the best friend of logisticians and accountants.

Rat King said:

We'd have to look at the design and see what works and see what exactly the ground forces want out of lander. If they're ok with a 1-2k lander we could dust off the 2k variant we designed a little while ago.

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If a remember right, the current MMV concept doesn't have streamlined hulls? I'd be useful for a lander to be streamlined, but without scoops there's no need for space combat vessels to be streamlined and scoops aren't on the horizon yet.

I think the Marines are going to remain a bit of a subsidiary service. I'm not sure what sort of mission we want them to have, but I kind of envision them as shock troops who do very fast, limited hot drops on enemy gravity wells or mostly stick to boarding actions, seizing stations, and operating as a security force for HSWS installations and so forth. Mostly because budget wise I don't think us supporting a whole second army is a good idea.

So my idea of landing craft is small, fast, and tough.

[X] Plan: Staggered Refit

[X] Plan: Staggered Refit

[X] Plan: Staggered Refit V2

Edit: changed my vote.

[X] Plan: Staggered Refit

Magnificate said:

Ehhh... I'd rather not build something that is meant just for testing and wouldn't be useful as an actual craft. 1K for a carrier seems as it would too small to use its tonnage efficiently.

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Building testing ships lets us learn from the experience and more efficiently arrange things for our future carriers. Using IRL ships as an analogue, early carriers were almost invariably fucked in some way, and building a massive ship first could result in us wasting money on extensive refits. This way, we can do the necessary refits on a small ship. It'll also have continued use as a testbed platform for advanced technology/concepts.

It's also useful for training afterwards. Our small-craft pilots need somewhere to train, so having that 1k ship kicking around in orbit over Home lets them practice while the actual carriers are away.

IMO this is a very good idea.

WallFly said:

As for landing ships, that's a discussion with the ground pounders to iron out. What size formation do we want to assault land (land while taking retaliatory/hot zone fire), do we want to insert special forces or pathfinders before hand, is a landing ship going to act as a semi-permanent base once it's on the ground or immediately try to come back to the surface, do we even want to land ships or a massive amount of assault shuttles/drop pods?

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Tallhart said:

for our Home Space Warfare Service. If our civilan masters wish us to design a ship with marine landing capability then perhaps be could consider some sort of multi-role assault carrier / LHD-type ship. Perhaps a 3000-4000 tons-ish design with the capacity to launch and recover dropships, landers, and fighter craft / gunships to support an opposed landing. Fitted with defensive armament, limited offensive armament, and Ortillery to

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I'm a big fan of something that can act as a LHD in that it'll carry the Marine shuttles as well as providing orbital fire support afterwards, since weapons optimized for that are probably not the same as those optimized in spacecraft-to-spacecraft combat. As for the landing craft themselves, I'm in agreement with @Artificial Girl in that I think they should be small and durable; this also hopefully means they can fit inside our cruisers (so that we can parcel out marines as needed for small stuff like what she mentions). However, I do want us to have some sort of LHD that can take all our marines and landing craft at once becauase trying to assemble forces for an amphibious assault over 24 hours seems like a great way for us to lose any element of surprise. The semi-permanent mulberry-esque surface base can be a thing we tow to the system after the initial drop.

[X] OPLAN Reflex Action
-[X] Something else entirely - a flight test version of the Bodkin Long Range Escort for deployment with the next scouting force-850 tons total, spinal or near-spinal missile systems as the "hub" of its offense, range to match DSS and Scouts.
-[X] Something else entirely-the first official test model of the Lancer MMV-3K tons.
-[X] Yes, but every operation requires authorisation from the highest levels.
-[X] Some other formation - a DSS, Scout, and Bodkin operating in a three-flight.

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With the solidification of our Service doctrine around exploration and responsive defense, we must prepare our forces for long exploratory and military missions far into the deep black, including such diverse and seemingly contrasting duties as mineral surveys and orbital assault insertions by FLF infantry units. Thankfully, due to our longtime commitment to exactly such a future doctrine, the Multispectrum Warfare Office would like to advance what it believes to be the most capable craft for the years ahead: the existing Bodkin Escort and Lancer Multi-Mission Vehicle design propsals. While the Lancer's 3,000-ton frame and advanced Type 25 rotary torpedo stand-off systems outmass the capability of our current industrial space, in some 11 months, our construction yards will have the time and resources required to produce the first in what this office can only hope to be a long line of capable, effective multi-mission spacecraft, including orbital bombardment and troop landing capability via its proposed 200-man FLFI droptroop accommodations. While doubtlessly industrial concerns and our own City Militia partners will push for a dedicated troop landing ship, our doctrine for such operations remains untested-a problem for which both peace- and wartime deployments via the Lancer and the much smaller half-company capacity of the Bodkin and its single drop craft will provide crucial data to correct. Furthermore, both designs will be of extreme utility to the evolving duties of the Service Scout Force (SSF), as the Bodkin can operate alongside our traditional tandem-jump teams of Scouts and Deep Space Surveyors as a trio of ships, defending against unknown threats via its rotary Type 20 missile systems and leading SAR and discovery operations via its FLF complement. With any luck, the sight of Space Warfare Service Lancers and Scouts over desperate worlds like Nova Refugio will serve as a sign of better times, and not an omen of conquest-to do otherwise would shame all the People's Daughters.

Artificial Girl said:

I think the Marines are going to remain a bit of a subsidiary service. I'm not sure what sort of mission we want them to have, but I kind of envision them as shock troops who do very fast, limited hot drops on enemy gravity wells or mostly stick to boarding actions, seizing stations, and operating as a security force for HSWS installations and so forth. Mostly because budget wise I don't think us supporting a whole second army is a good idea.

So my idea of landing craft is small, fast, and tough.

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Completely agree-although I will as ever grumble and whine about the Fleet Landing Forces being called Marines in OOC and IC both.

That's just me being a sad sack about "space is an ocean" cliches, though-your doctrinal summary is spot on!!

[X] Plan: Staggered Refit with a Carrier
-[X] Immediate: Construct one new Block II - aim to get to range 2+2 with the new miniaturized J-Drive, drop tank fittings, and improve crew comfort for longer cruises. Replace engines with upgrade to M6. Napkin math says this will cost roughly 500 MCreds
-[X] 11 Months: 1x DSS (500 tons, 200 MCr)
-[X] 11 months: Refit existing Interstellar Cruisers to Block II two at a time to maintain active ships (2k tons, 150 MCred/refit); continue until refits complete as budget allows. Prioritize refits over outpost construction if budget constraints kick in.
-[X] 11 months: start construction on station segments for outpost in Heimdall or at Staging Point.
-[X] 11 months: Develop and construct an experimental/training carrier based on the Block II Interstellar Cruiser hull
-[X] Scouting: Yes, but every operation requires authorization from the highest levels.
-[X] Scouting: A flotilla support ship, two DSS ships and two IS ships for maximum capability.

The MMV has a marine complement of 30. I do not think that is enough to justify the cost of the ship. I'd rather build more station segments and a testbed carrier, then jump to an Interstellar Monitor or larger sized LHD.