As usual, most of my arguments are with Dave Johnson... :-)
From: [email removed] (David Johnson)
>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.
Yep. Blame GDW... they could have modeled Classic Traveller on
Star Wars, or Star Trek, both of which show signs of thinking
"futuristic", but instead went with "1970s with Starships"...
>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.
He would quite rightly suggest that it was the province of the
Navy, not the cavalry, to envision such things...
If you think the modern or future world has nothing to learn from
the military geniuses of the past, why is Sun Tzu's "Art of War"
required reading for U.S. Marine officers? (I have read Sun Tzu;
much of his commentary is timeless.)
>Yes, but again we are limited by our own concepts of submarines. The
I'm not; I watched "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" as a kid.
:-) I still think the Flying Sub was neat...
>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?
A) personal preference.
B) TCS is based on world economies directly; given X people at
Techno-Economic Level Y, you get X*Y*C credits to play with. Make up
and apply a good thumb-rule for translating credits to number of hulls
at Z tons each, based on known prices of ships as listed in the rules.
Poof, you have a number of ships per region (sub-sector, sector,
square foobars) that is consistant with the rest of the rules (i.e.,
makes sense). The Rebellion Sourcebook stuff seems to be a lot of
"we'll pull an even number out of thin air and write it down...".
On the other hand, for poltical reasons, the Imperium may be
building a lot fewer ships than it is capable of... (a) most of its
yard production may be in mercantile shipping (the "phantom" bulk
haulers once discussed on the TML), (b) member worlds may be
exploiting the advantage of being in a large Imperium: an Imperium
needs fewer ships to defend its borders than the sum of the ships each
member world would need to defend itself. Therefore, member worlds
need spend much less tax money and build fewer non-producer
(military) vessels than an independent world would. Note that both
arguments assume that both TCS & RS numbers are valid in the same
universe.
The objection to this argument is that if argument (b) is true,
the Imperial economy should be booming... so why do we have so many
worlds with the Techno-economic levels of banana republics? And, the
numbers given in 5FW and RS sources are *TOO* low to defend the
borders of the Imperium, even with the size advantage -- not when one
independent world can produce a big enough fleet to seriously threaten
the entire Spinward Marches, IF the Spinward Marches fleets are as
small as suggested in RS.
You could also argue that *only* 5FW & RS numbers are valid; I
simply cannot stomach that. When GWP (Gross World Product) CAN be
estimated based on listed population and required standards-of-living
from the MegaTraveller rules, and ship construction costs are known
from the same rules (likewise, both facts can be ascertained in CT
rules), IT MAKES NO SENSE for worlds to build a tiny fraction of the
Navy they are capable of building, especially when their "lives,
fortunes and sacred honor" are threatened by (pick one) Imperial
conquest, Zho conquest, Sword World raiders, Vargr raiders, Solomani
conquest, K'kree militant vegetarianism, etc, etc, etc.
>> 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? :-)
You're being silly. I can go to my bookcase and pull out two
military works by generals dead over 2000 years, both from Empires
that have undergone worse "Dark Ages" and worse Tech Level losses than
space-faring humanity ever did in Traveller... The Vilani have been
spacefaring for 10,000 years, and fighting other spacefarers for a
signficant fraction of that. Add in Aslan military history (2000
years), Terran military history (3000+ years), Zhodani, Vargr, and
K'kree military history (several more thousands of years), and you
have one hell of a huge body of "Theory and Practice of Interstellar
Warfare".
I quote you: "way too much 20th Century thinking and not enough
57th(?) Century thinking." You are forgetting the sheer weight of 37
centuries... for Terran humanity alone. How much have we (Real World)
learned about the Art of War in 3700 years? A lot. How much have we
forgotten? None. In a Dark Age, the Art and Technology of War is the
one thing that advances, rather than declining...
>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?
You asked this already. In the same letter. See above.
>What I'm asking is why you choose to accept *TCS* data over *RS*
>data?
I understand that. Read this letter.
>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*?
There is *at least* a one-day "jump lag" between you posting a
letter, and all the responses to it coming in.... and you asked this
question already.
>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?
You've seen Hans' opinions about the Ihatei doing anything in
Glisten or Trin's Veil... his opinion is similar to ours. To be
kind, most of GDW's Rebellion-era material is not the highest quality
they've ever produced. Also, don't 5FW counters (including the SDBs)
represent Squadrons and Fleets, rather than individual ships?
> 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.?
> What about types/classes themselves? Is there some finer
>breakdown than battles, cruisers, carriers, escorts, etc.?
Yes. Tonnages are approximate, based on classes from Supplement 9,
and from memory. Classes are usually based on size and intended use.
Primary function: slug it out with other large ships; has
spinal mount; jump capable; aka "Capital ships".
100,000+ tons - Battleship
70,000 - 100,000t - Heavy Cruiser, Battlecruiser
40,000 - 60,000t - Cruiser
20,000 - 40,000t - Light Cruiser, Cruiser
Primary function: as above, not jump capable.
over 5,000t - Rider, BattleRider
Primary function: carry small combatants (fighters, SDBs)
any size - Carrier
add armor - Armored Carrier
add spinal mount - Strike Carrier
Primary function: carry large combatants (Riders)
any size - Tender
add armor, weapons - Battletender (?)
Primary function: escort capital ships and carriers, engage SDBs,
light riders, badly-designed fighters and mop up damaged capital
ships.
1000-3000 tons - Escort, Light Escort
3000-10,000 tons - Destroyer, Destroyer Escorts
10,000-20,000 tons - rarely seen for some reason. (Frigate ?)
Primary function: commerce raiding, anti-piracy patrols, customs
cutters.
300-1000 tons - Close Escort, Patrol Escort("Patrol Cruiser")
1000-3000 tons - Escorts as above, on independent or convoy duty.
Primary function: engage similar combatants or cruisers, travel in
large battle groups of same type. (My own designation, based on an
extra-Imperial nation with non-standard doctrine).
3000-20,000 tons - Corvette or Frigate
Primary function: small non-jump combatants, delivered in swarms to
battlezone, or used for commerce raiding.
50-200 tons - heavy fighter, small SDB. If well-designed, can
disable capital ships if in large numbers.
20-50 tons - fighter. Commerce raider. Cannon fodder.
6-20 tons - light fighter, interface fighter. Cannon fodder.
> Is there a way to tell a frigate from a destroyer, etc.
>(besides what the designer choose to call it)?
Beats the hell out of me. Depends if you are using classic
European usage or modern American usage for the term "frigate". The
former means a large ship, not quite as big as a "ship of the line".
(the USS Constitution was a frigate) Modern equivalent would be heavy
cruiser or cruiser. The latter usage means a small escort, smaller
than a destroyer with slightly different duties.
American frigates were formerly called "Destroyer Escorts". The
purpose of the Destroyer is clearer if you remember that the name is
short for "Submarine Destroyer". As a carrier group or battlegroup
escort, the destroyer's job is anti-submarine warfare; the frigate's
job is manning the radar pickets (listening for enemy aircraft, ships
or missiles in coming) out there at the edges of the fleet. Ideally,
the frigate is between the Carrier (or Battleship) and its
accompanying cruisers and the enemy, and will "see" (and handle
fire-control against) the enemy before the enemy can "see" the core of
the Carrier Group. Or something like that.
And I have no idea what a Traveller Frigate would be good for
(spatial equivalent?) In any case, the type names are chosen by the
military based on intended use, not by the designer. The U.S. Navy
has changed the type names of several ships during their lifespans, as
they were refitted and given different duties.
-- Cynthia