Yes you read it right. I'm planning to discuss modelling boarding party
operations as a stargrunt game.
The best source we have for discussion of conditions
aboard ship is pages 43-44 of the Full Thrust
Fleetbook.
OPFOR: Who's defending this thing, anyway? On a NAC Victoria class BB, there's
a crew of 120. The breakdown is pretty clear that this does not include
Marines of any kind. We can assume from this that none of the crew numbers in
the Fleet Book include Marines. The NAC Battleship includes quarters for a
Marine Combat Team of platoon-size. I presume this is
the 32-man platoon listed in the Stargrunt book under
NAC Royal Marines. This is approximately 1/4 the size
of the ship's crew, or 5 men per crew factor. On the other hand, the platoon
listed under the VKF Naval Infantry in the Stargrunt book is 38 men and is
listed
as the complement of a "Cruiser-sized space warship".
Now, let's assume for the sake of making my math work out neatly that what is
meant is the new
Voroshilev-class Heavy Cruiser, with a normal crew of
78. We find then that this platoon is 1/2 the size of
the ship's crew and 8 per crew factor (rounding screwiness intrudes here).
What are we to make of this? First, that Marines are not part of the crew and
that the proportion of Marines carried varies from ship to ship (navy to navy?
Possibly, no evidence here). Because it works out so neatly, let's take these
two figures as the extremes and say that you can carry Marines from
between 1/2 and 1/4 of the ship's crew.
Who else is on this ship? 8 Line Officers and 24 Operations Crew who are
actually needed to run the ship. You can take crew losses, but you can't drop
below this number without impairing operational efficiency. The rest of the
crew are (apparently) there to keep the ship running during normal operations
and are only needed in battle to repair
damage. That's just over 1/4 of the total crew, but I
suspect it's a higher proportion on smaller ships. They are locked into crash
couches and probably won't
be doing squat until/unless someone breaks into their
compartment and then they would defend themselves if armed. Otherwise they are
trying to keep the ship in the fight.
There's 47 Engineering and Damage Control personnel. We know from the rules
that there are 6 damage control parties (1 per crew factor) and we know from
p44 that the "Engineering personnel [are] in sealed suits and locked into
crash frames". Since it makes me a happy person, let's say for discussion's
sake that there are 6 men per damage control party which makes for 36 DC
personnel and 11 Engineering crew. Add the Chief Engineering Officer, and it
turns out that 10% of the crew is engineering, while 30% is DC. Now there's an
interesting thing about those DC guys--they are
running around all over the ship, doing God Knows What (Give me the
HYDROSPANNERS!) while the gravity is being erratic, the ship is maneuvering,
and the ship is taking fire (or they wouldn't need DC, would they??). Lots of
explosions, flames, and sparks. You know what I'd do with them? I'd put them
in Powered Armor. They wouldn't need it to be heavy, in fact it might be a
hinderance. It wouldn't need to be incredibly fast since they aren't going
that far anyway. That gives us d10 PA with no doubled movemnt.
This meshes nicely with a 6-man DCP since most
nation's PA squads are 6 men anyway, right?
There's 31 "Other"--sickbay orderlies, auxiliary craft
crew, galley staff, and general flunkies. WTF are they doing during a battle?
I don't know. We have
any former/current aquatic-type people who can tell me
what these people are doing? They aren't manning secondary weaponry, or doing
DC, so what do they do? I mean, I can assume the sickbay types are patching up
wounded as they come in, but what about everyone else?
Then you start getting into what weaponry does the ship's crew carry? Naval
vessels who are assigned to customs and patrol duties will have a certain
amount of small arms on board for arming boarding and inspection parties. They
may even have arms lockers for repelling boarding parties. Does your average
crewman carry during a battle? Probably not today, but given the relationship
between ranges and speeds
in the GZG-verse, it may become more likely. NRE
certaintly does. I'd still rate most sailors as green
in a Stargrunt game--although Coast Guard equivelants
who have done extended anti-piracy missions may be
regular.
Environmental Factors:
OK, by the time a ship is crippled enough to be boarded, we probably won't
have to worry about it making sudden accelerations. It probably won't have a
breathable atmosphere, but we are pretty much assuming all naval personnel are
at least in space suits (d6) and all marines are in full body armor (d8) or
PA. Now here's a fun question: How to model decompression of compartments the
hard way (Plasma gun, demo charge)? What effects does it have on the crews
inside? On the attackers outside?
What happens if the defenders retain control of the artificial gravity? What
if they can play with the gravity in the compartments the invaders are in (Now
it's 0G, now it's 6G, now it's 6G but local down is what was local up a minute
ago, etc).? What happens if you shoot up the various computers? What happens
if Joe Snuffy puts a 20mm grenade into the control panel of a fusion reactor?
From: John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com>
> I'd put them [DCP] in Powered Armor.
Makes sense but it would necessarily have PA weapons handy. On the
other hand, they will probably have high-intensity, short-range
cutting tools.
> There's 31 "Other"--sickbay orderlies, auxiliary craft
Manning secondary weapons and doing DC, and generally being backups in case
the lead man on their assigned job is taken out of action.
> Then you start getting into what weaponry does the
They won't unless they're worried about being boarded. This may vary
a bit by navy--ESU ships almost certainly don't carry armed crew
(except masters at arms and senior officers), whereas AE crew almost always
have weapons.
> Now here's a fun question: How to model decompression
Bearing in mind that some navies migt start the fight dcompressed.
> What happens if the defenders retain control of the
depending on how fine your control of the grav is and the size of your
passageways, you can bounce attackers off the overhead and deck on
something like 1/5 second cycle at 6 gees. Not very healthy.
What happens
> if you shoot up the various computers? What happens
Probably 9 time out of 10, the fusion reactor shuts down safely. The
> There's 31 "Other"--sickbay orderlies, auxiliary craft
I just finished serving on a destroyer and it worked like this, The spare and
off watch engineering types would form damage control parties
The logistic types (cooks,supply, clerks) would form the casualty clearing
parties.
The off-watch operation room types and anyone else that did not have a
specific job would form a manning pool that would supplement the damage
control parties as required.
one thing that should be remembered is that most ships will have at least
twice as many people as there are positions to man because while one group is
manning the ship during normal sailing the other would be sleeping
> --- Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
> Makes sense but it would necessarily have PA weapons
I presume you mean "not necessarily".
> handy. On the
FP 2, Imp d12*, close range band only? Counts as close combat weapon? Sucks to
stand next to them.
> They won't unless they're worried about being
NRE not only arms it's sailors with infantry weaponry (not usually carried,
but available in weapons lockers) and occasionally deploys "Naval Infantry" in
the old British sense (ie: Sailors impersonating infantry because there aren't
enough Marines to overawe the natives). But in a space combat action
they'd get in the way--most likely would be pistols
only.
> Bearing in mind that some navies migt start the
I would.
> depending on how fine your control of the grav is
It would have to be pretty fine to even try to compensate for the vagaries of
combat maneuvering.
> Probably 9 time out of 10, the fusion reactor shuts
Sounds like decent odds.
> > Makes sense but it would necessarily have PA weapons
Hostile boarding actions may, or may not, be very difficult. Tuffleyverse does
not include tractor beams, so boarding actions against maneuverable vessels is
problematic. You have to get to range zero and be moving at the same speed and
direction, so the first priority is using your needlebeams to take out the
main drive. The other major problem is that the psb for the beam
batteries means that even a single class-1 beam battery will ruin most
of your day if it is fired at ranges below a kilometer. The other problem is
that you do not need a functioning FCS at those ranges, as the mk.1 eyeball
mated with the wetware computer is more than capable in those situations. I
wouldn't try to board a vessel, if I was not absolutely confident that it was
disarmed
John,
On our cutters we generally have 3 LE teams that are made up of crewmembers
from each watch. They consist of a boarding officer (E-7, O-1 or O-2)
3-4
boarding team members and 2 boat crew. All are armed with pistols. If there is
higher threat they can be armed with Shotguns, M16s. A large vessel can get 2
teams going over it or all three.
This is from a ships compliment of about 8-12 officers, and 60-80 crew.
Good ideas, I like the concept.
Bob
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> On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, K.H.Ranitzsch wrote:
> > What happens if you shoot up the various computers?
[...]
> It may be more fun if you think of a lot of nasty stuff that happens
Stop it! STOP IT!!
Aaaahhhh!!!!!!! -- <BOOM!>
> John,
3-4
> boarding team members and 2 boat crew. All are armed with pistols.
If
> there is higher threat they can be armed with Shotguns, M16s. A large
On a Canadian destroyer ( 300 crew) there would be a 20 man boarding party.
this would be a secondary duty for them and they are drawn from all different
departments. One thing about the boarding party is they are also intended to
act as a prize crew of the boarded vessel so the mix of trades would allow
them to run it. Ships going to the gulf would normally have two 20 man teams.
The weaponry issued is close action stuff (submachineguns, shotguns and
pistols) although M16's and LMG's are available for shore work.
One consideration when boarding a naval vssel is that there would likely be a
lot of escape hatches that would lead from one space to another, some in the
deck or deckhead that might not be obvious to the enemy force, this would give
a home field advantage to the boarded ship. picture the boarding party
reporting a space clear, only to have troops comeing out of the escape hatch
under the desk behind the that they did not notice.
> --- Bob Makowsky <rmakowsky@yahoo.com> wrote:
Are they dedicated LE personnel, or is this an additional duty?
John,
This is additional duty. You get your boarding team from the section not on
watch. The LE Detachments we send to Navy ships are dedicated
LE/boarding.
They train more and see more action. These would be regular or veteran. The
Boarding teams from an average cutter would be green or regular.
Boarding teams can be led by E-6 but they try for E-7/O-1/2.
Bob
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