All: Army and Navy

Gentlesophonts:

Steve Charlton <???> writes:

> In the case of aerospace
> forces, an Imperial task group of whatever size would have some form
> of orbital support fire, and perhaps even cover from carrier-based
> space fighters.

Not necessarily the case.  Naval forces may be forced to jump outsystem
(or at least vector out of orbit) after landing planetary units and before
they are able to retrieve them.  I'd hate to be the planetary commander
who had to fight opposing orbital bombardment and aerospace forces with
only ground forces.  Similarly, I'd hate to have to fight ballistic
missile submarines and orbital satellites with only AFVs or other grav
ground vehicles.

> In addition, high-tech AFVs can be classed as aerospace
> fighters in many respects, maybe slower but with far more firepower.

This is an important point that I think is very difficult for us TL 8
humans to understand.  Distinctions between ground, air and orbital
craft/vehicles will tend to disappear with the advent of contragravity.
I'm not going to argue this from a design rules standpoint (I wouldn't
be able to anyway) but from a philosophical standpoint, at average
stellar tech levels there won't *be* clear distinctions between things
like AFVs and aerospacecraft.  To the extent that we still see such
distinctions I think we are merely falling victim to our experience that
has been limited to things like tanks and fighter planes.

> submersible threat would be more problematic, but I do remember that

> that SDBs and fighters were often based in the oceans.  I would suspect
> that such vessels would have some limited combat ability in the sea.

Yes, but again we are limited by our own concepts of submarines.  The
wet navy material that appeared in *Challenge* was a great start in this
direction.  It showed things like submarines attacking orbital craft
and the like.

I think this acceptance of air, sea and land forces and the subsequent
focus on land forces (which goes all the way back to *Mercenary*) is
way too much 20th Century thinking and not enough 57th(?) Century
thinking.  The next time you think 20th Century experience is relevant
for Traveller planetary combat ask yourself how well a Prussian cavalry
officer might envision a carrier battle group hunting for attack
submarines.

In the Traveller-era I believe there will be two types of military
forces:  space forces (the Navy) and planetary (land/sea/air) forces
(the Army).  There may be some specialized forces like the Marines but
the only command division will be at the point where certain grav
vehicles/craft cannot escape planetary orbit.

The stuff that's appeared on ground forces is good as far as it goes but
I'd like to see a combat force that was equipped to move through several
worlds in a subsector: a water world, a vacuum world, a `garden' world,
and a desert world for starters.  I'll let all you folks with military
experience or inclination decide whether this needs to be a corps or
army or several armies with whatever associated space forces are
necessary.  Each of these worlds has some sort of planetary and local
space forces but not more than your fleet of several squadrons ought
to be able to deal with if you have the right force composition.

I realize the Imperium doesn't need this sort of flexibility because it
can just lumber along and wait for the appropriate forces to be transported
to the respective worlds but the Imperium is gone.  What kind of forces
is the Regency going to use to chase that Vampire Fleet from behind the
Black Curtain back across Corridor, mopping up or `cleansing' worlds
along the way?

> Anybody who has watched the US Army
> trying to load one armored battalion onto a train will appreciate just
> how long it takes to move such forces, even if some equipment is
> pre-packed or prepositioned.

How long does it take if I have contragravity?  :-)


Cynthia Higginbotham [email removed] writes:

>     One of the things that happened after High Guard came out was a
> major change in the sizes and numbers of Naval vessels cruising about.

> If you are playing in a High
> Guard/MT/TNE universe, do not take anything from early JTAS or very
> early supplements about Naval strength as "canonical".

*I'm* certainly the last person to argue over rules (I generally throw
them *all* out) but I don't think it's this cut and dried.  The `1000
ships per sector' and `50-200 ships per numbered [subsector] fleet'
figures are from the *Rebellion Sourcebook*, a MegaTraveller reference.
It was these numbers that I used to estimate the Sword Worlds naval
forces at 42 ships.

The distinction seems to be more of `strategic' focus (fleet compostion
and such per *5FW* and *RS*) versus `tactical' focus (ship tonnages and
the like per *HG*, *TCS* and *TNE*).  I believe this is where the
actual inconsistencies are.

>     I believe that the WAR!  issue of JTAS had designer's notes for
> 5FW, and how to derive your own defense batallions and SDB strengths.

It was *JTAS* #10 (the `War!' issue was #9).  The article only covers
*ground* (not aersopace or nautical) forces.  There are no corresponding
rules for SDBs or other space forces in *JTAS*.

>     Many aspects of Imperial doctrine appear to have be thought up by
> someone who never played a TCS (or similar Naval warfare) campaign;
> they just don't work in practice.

This is fine with me.  So what do we do now?  What is the rationale for
accepting the *TCS* or other `tactical' part of the canon *over* the *RS* or
other `strategic' part of the canon?

>     I think that real Imperial Naval officers, who have 10,000 years
> of space combat experience to draw on, would use doctrines based on
> that experience, that make sense; therefore, I regard most of what was
> said regarding Imperial Naval doctrine in JTAS and Challenge as so
> much hogwash.

You know someone with 10,000 years of space combat experience?  :-)


Steve ??? [email removed] writes:

> 	More thinly populated???  The SW have around 30 gigapeople in them,
> all reasonably high tech. Regina subsector can only claim about 7
> gigapeople, Rhylanor about 25, Vilis less than 10...

Yes, more thinly populated "than the `average' Imperial subsector".  This
inludes those heavily populated subsectors in the Imperial core.  Regina and
other subsectors in the Spinward Marches are also `frontiers' - they're not
`average' for the Imperium.

> 	Plus, of course, the 50-200 ships per subsector is ridiculously low
> BY TCS STANDARDS.

We've already established this.  Again, what is the rationale for
accepting `tactical' figures from places like *TCS* over `strategic'
figures from *RS* and the like?

> Frankly, any single Tigress could beat up the SW
> Fleet if it is only 40 major combatants...

Even if it had several 200,000 ton battles?  Is this a tech level issue?

> > It may be hard to imagine but it's consist with canonical material.
>
> 	Do yourself a favour, and learn to ignore canonical material when it
> is clearly pretty stupid.  Regina may have had 10 400T SDBs, but if it
> did, ask yourself "Why?"

What I'm asking is why you choose to accept *TCS* data over *RS* data?

> 	There is no military use for them (any of Neubayern's Flower class
> escorts (of which there were more than a thousand) could take all ten
> SDBs at once.

You're "mixing apples and orange".  Why would I choose to have a *TCS*-
generated aggressor fight a *5FW*-generated defender?

> 	There is no real civilian use for them (other than to let pirates
> run amok through the Regina system) - remember that Regina orbits a gas
> giant, and has a HUGE jump-limit to patrol - thye couldn't patrol it
> adequately with ten of ANYTHING, much less SDBs that are no match for a
> well-equipped pirate.

Let's see what a little creative rationalization can do with this.  I
postulate one or more fuel refining depots in orbit about the gas giant.
There are strictly controlled traffic corridors between the 100-diameter
jump point, the fuel depots and Regina itself.  85% percent of incoming
traffic and 100% of outgoing traffic passes through these corridors.  Of
course, some `unauthorized' traffic might skirt these corridors but I'm
not worried about protecting them from corsairs anyway.

I came up with this in about 30 seconds.  Give me a couple of weeks and
I'll make those 10 SDBs *invaluable*!  (As long as you don't restrict me
to *5FW* constraints while you use *TCS*.)

> 	There were designer's notes for FFW in one of the Journals...

Again, these only covered *ground* forces.

> 	Au contraire, mon vieux...Impy doctrine (which is frankly idiotic)
> assumes that the battle for the gas giant between the enemy fleet and
> your SDBs will be the crucial part of the defense of any system.

Remember MegaTraveller?  The Imperium only fights for high population
worlds.  In *5FW*, high pop worlds have *hundreds* of SDBs that are able
to match the jump-mobile naval squadrons.  Furthermore, I believe that
*JTAS* said that the 10 Regina SDBs deployed in the gas giant's atmosphere
in order to `harrass' opposing forces.  There was even a rule in the
game for declaring your SDBs `active' or `passive' or some such thing.

> 	Admittedly, this isn't worth a pile of warm spit in terms of Naval
> Doctrine.  I point out, for those who are interested, that in only ONE
> case in my TCS game did a Fleet jump in to a gas giant, rather than
> arriving at the 100 diameter limit of the main world.

What do we have here?  The Cult of the Trillion Credit Squadron?  :-)
I'm not trying to argue what *TCS* says.  What I want to know is *why* I
should ignore *5FW* and *RS* in favor of *HG* and *TCS*?

> 	Faced with defeat by Ihatei?!?   What a concept!!!  I suppose
> Regina's ten 400T SDBs might be faced with defeat by Ihatei, if the
> Ihatei could get in that far, but I find it hard to believe that any
> _important_ Impy force could be defeated by the Ihatei...

More Cult dogma?  The *Rebellion Sourcebook* clearly indicates that most
of Glisten subsector as well as portions of District 268 and Trin's Veil
subsector fell at one point to the *ihatei*.  Once again we see that the
`strategic' viewpoint conflicts with a `tactical' one.  How do we choose,
rationally, between the two?  Can we reconcile them at all?

Finally, I've got a question for all you *TCS* cult members.  Is there any
clear way to identify ship types or classes based upon tonnages?  In other
words, is there some breakdown like:

Battles          100,000+
Cruisers         40,000 - 100,000
Destroyers       5000 - 40,000
Etc.?
(Please don't take issue with my numbers.  I don't have a clue what the
actual values out to be.)

What about types/classes themselves?  Is there some finer breakdown than
battles, cruisers, carriers, escorts, etc.?  Is there a way to tell a
frigate from a destroyer, etc. (besides what the designer choose to call it)?

Peace,

David Johnson
Houston, Texas, USA