Having served on a U.S. Navy Amphibious Flagship and seeing merchants, I can
tell you that they are not the same. The Rules in MT regarding amphibious
ships should be changed. IF you have a merchant ship and convert it to carry
troops then you save money on the design and carry the burden of lack of DC
capability or hull integrity. True Amphibious ships are warships that devote
their mass to troops instead of weapons but they still maintain the same level
of hull integrity and Damage Control capability. Therefore I propose that
Amphibious ships be established using standard military hulls and drive costs.
The difference is that they can devote only 10 percent of their mass to
weapons, the remaining to troops. This means that they can carry (MASS*5)
number of troops. The amphibious landing boats are considered in the troop
carrying capacity, but none are assault boats. These would have to be counted
against the troops capacity... Tell me what you think. Phil P.
> On Sun, 2 Feb 1997 AEsir@aol.com wrote:
> Having served on a U.S. Navy Amphibious Flagship and seeing merchants,
Amphibious spaceships...? <g>
> IF you have a merchant ship and convert it to carry
Exactly. However, the MT troop transports (at least in the section Mike
and Jon wrote) seem to be purpose-built troop transports - but without
the high structural integrity and the many redundant systems of the true
warships; not a hastily converted liner.
Note, however, that most space liners would probably have enough
auxiliary craft - read 'shuttles' - to let them work as troop
transports, at least for infantry, without too large refits. The difference
between a landing shuttle and a military assault shuttle is probably quite a
bit less than that between a wet naval landing craft and a wet naval
life-boat.
With a 'container' type space freighter (which isn't unreasonable, and which
is implied in the other idea for troop transports in MT), a
container could be constructed to carry troops and/or shuttles instead
of cargo. The containers needn't be loaded inside the ship as on today's
container carriers; I'd rather imagine them as being carried in external
'hooks' (...look at the large CMD/GZG freighters, or the ships in
'Moonbase Alpha'...).
> True Amphibious ships are warships that devote their mass to troops
A space troop transport wouldn't need to close enough to the planet to get
shot at, if it's shuttles have a long enough range... and thus wouldn't
necessarily need to have the extra hull integrity.
Regards,
> On Sun, 2 Feb 1997 AEsir@aol.com wrote:
Actually, if you think about it "amphibious" means "double lived", with
nothing about the "doubling" being water and land, so thinking of it as "space
and surface" is pretty reasonable.
> IF you have a merchant ship and convert it to carry
> and Jon wrote) seem to be purpose-built troop transports - but without
I agree- a lander designed for repeated atmospheric entry would have to
be pretty tough, amounting to an armoured aerospace vehicle in DS2 terms.
SNIP
> A space troop transport wouldn't need to close enough to the planet to
I think this is one of those questions best answered by natural
selection- if your campaign has strong system defence flotillas then you
might find the grunts have no ride home if they use merchant transports, but
as Oerjan points out, if they can be safely dropped from far enough out, it
would be a waste to buy military hulls if they're unlikely to fight.
Cheers,
I suggest that you read on in my description to the sections that cover the
troop carrying capacity etc. Using the More Thrust section on troops carried
we can see that a standard warship can devote about 10% of its mass to carry
shore parties. This means a standard warship can carry its Mass X 5/4
worth
of troops. This number assumes the shuttles onboard that can ferry
troops to ground when not challenged by enemy forces. Meanwhile an Amphibious
Warship can carry its Mass X 5 worth of troops. Again this assumes using
standard boats to ferry the troops to the surface. When doing an opposed
assault, your assault boats count against you troop carrying capacity.
Amphibious ships, particulary today, conduct their battles close to enemy
shores. I see not difference in space. The USS Tripoli survived a mine hit,
because of her DC and structural integrity, meanwhile many converted merchants
have not done so well...
> On Fri, 7 Feb 1997 AEsir@aol.com wrote:
> I suggest that you read on in my description to the sections that
To be accurate, 8% and Mass X 1, if 'worth of troops' means 'number of
marine soldiers' (from MT, page 18. The other FT/ground interface uses
completely different scales...). Troopships with no other equipment can
carry Mass X 25/4, or roughly Mass X 6, infantry soldiers (unless
they're frozen down, of course). Not that it matters much.
> Amphibious ships, particulary today, conduct their battles close to
I do. How sea-worthy are today's landing craft? Will they survive a
storm on their own?
OTOH, in space the roughest part of the trip - excepting enemy fire, of
course - is the insertion into the atmosphere. Thus the landing, not the
long-distance transport, requires the most structural integrity (or
'seaworthyness').
> The USS Tripoli survived a mine hit,
Mines are far, far easier to hide in water than in space, though.
The entire point is 'Must the transport get close enough to the enemy to be
fired upon while disembarking troops'?
You think it has to, so you think military hulls are mandatory; I don't
think it has to - I think assault shuttles have long enough range to
launch quite far from the planet - so my troop transports don't need
military hulls... as long as the enemy is prevented from firing upon them. In
addition, if my transports are 'container ships', they can change roles
- for example to bulk haulers, or tankers (something you _can't_ do with
wet-naval ships) - far easier than purpose-built troop carriers... and
they'll probably be quite a bit cheaper.
Regards,
Ok I'm bored so I will just start replying semirandomly to messages that
strike me as humorous.
> hosford donald writes:
@:) IMHO I think you two have two different concepts in mind. The @:) design
of the "amphibious ship" depends on which you use...
@:)
@:) A) close support: the ship physically gets close to the shore, @:) and
then drops off the troops
@:)
@:) B) landing craft: The ship stays out away from shore, and just @:)
launches landing craft.
Uh... there's some kind of infinite recursion problem here in B)... You
probably meant landing SHIP. Although, on the other hand, it might confuse the
enemy to produce an infinite succession of landing craft, each bobbing
menacingly in the cold predawn waters, each spawning forth two more equally
menacing landing craft.... I wonder, would the new ships be the same size as
the old ones or would they get smaller and smaller and smaller....
> At 05:53 PM 2/13/97 +0100, you wrote:
IMHO I think you two have two different concepts in mind. The design of the
"amphibious ship" depends on which you use...
A) close support: the ship physically gets close to the shore, and then drops
off the troops
B) landing craft: The ship stays out away from shore, and just launches
landing craft.
In A the ship must be a military ship, where in B it does not.
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> OTOH, in space the roughest part of the trip - excepting enemy fire,
Enemy fire is the whole problem though, the transport has to survive contact
with the enemy in order to land the troops. Fighters and assault shuttles are
easy targets on the way down, the farther they have to go, the longer the
enemy can zero in and fire on them. not to mention heavy cargo. tanks probably
cannot be taken in by assault shuttle.
> The entire point is 'Must the transport get close enough to the enemy
how do you plan to stop the enemy from firing on them? the nice thing about
troop transports is their support functions. they act as hospital, air
traffice control, supply depot and HQ until such funtions can be taken over by
on ground personnel. Self defense is another reason why military ships have it
all over civil hulls. even if escorted they make prime targets for enemy fire,
particularly if they know you are coming for THEIR planet.
Look at the formula in MT again. A Warship has a number of Cargo spaces for
Marines equal to its MASS X 4. Each Marine takes up 4 cargo spaces... Unless
they are frozen. If you combine the rules for Warships, Merchants etc. you get
that the ship may carry a number of Marines equal to the Mass devoted to
troops multiplied by 4. If you work it all out then a warship with 10% devoted
to troops can carry a number of troops equal to its Mass X
5/4. An Amphibious ship with 50% of its mass devoted to troops, (10%
for weapons) may carry its Mass X 5 troops. Phil P.
Quick question, not really relevant to anything here: What does everyone mean
by "amphibious" ships? I believe that an amphibious ship refers to one that
can operate on both water and land, like an amphibian. Needless to say, it
doesn't seem that this would apply in space. Just confused,
> Johnnemann Nordhagen wrote:
Getting the numbers straight...
> On Thu, 13 Feb 1997 AEsir@aol.com wrote:
> Look at the formula in MT again.
That's exactly what I did...
> A Warship has a number of Cargo spaces for
Yes.
If you work it all out then a warship
> with 10% devoted to troops can carry a number of troops equal to its
OK, I didn't realize you meant those 10% and Mass X 5/4 in addition to
the marines. I assumed that the marines would participate in the landing
operation, and that they were the 'shore party'.
> An Amphibious ship with 50% of its mass devoted to troops, (10% for
50% of Mass devoted to troops = Mass X 25 CS = Mass X 25/4 ~ Mass X 6
troops.
40% of Mass devoted to troops = Mass X 20 CS = Mass X 5 troops. If you
devote 10% of the Mass to weapons, those 10% are _not_ devoted to troops
- or at least I wouldn't want to bunk in an energy gun...
> Johnnemann Nordhagen writes:
@:) Quick question, not really relevant to anything here: What does @:)
everyone mean by "amphibious" ships? I believe that an amphibious @:) ship
refers to one that can operate on both water and land, like @:) an amphibian.
Needless to say, it doesn't seem that this would @:) apply in space. Just
confused,
I think the term is being used here to refer to ships that can operate both
inside and outside an atmosphere, and more particularly to ships that can
actually land on planets. Since there aren't any animals that can do this
(that I know of, anyway), it's a little hard to come up with a good word for
it.
In the United States Navy and many others the word Amphibious Ship refers to a
vessel designed primarily to put Marines ashore. The methods may inlcude,
ferrying them in by helicopter (LPH/LHD/LHA), landing them by boats and
or
hover craft (LSD/LPD) or even making a landing and using a bridge to put
vehicles ashore (LST). Some countries maintain landing support transports such
as LKAs. Phil P.
> At 06:31 PM 2/14/97 -0500, you wrote:
I agree with you...the exact methoud is up to the player building the ship!
Ok, thanks to everyone who replied. I guess I'm just not up to date on
military terminology. Oh well. :-) Later,
> I think the term is being used here to refer to ships that can