> Time to grab GURPS Vehicles, GURPS Traveller, and request a week of time
> off from work?
>
> Todd Kes
>
> --- On Tue, 7/3/12, John Potter wrote:
> FF&S doesn't really support it.
> Dave discussed this fact a week or so ago on this group list. In essence
> there is not way to account for the fluid dynamics required with
> interactions between water/fluid and the hull shape.
>
I think a do-able version of a FF&S Wet Navy sequence could be done. There are a few concepts that would lend themselves to this in one of the naval books I have: Rebuilding the Royal Navy by Brown and Moore - Brown being a well-known British naval architect.
1) Hull Form. There appear to be general standard hull shapes for ships with certain roles. Frigate, destroyer, cruiser etc.
2) Modifications. Stern flaps for high-speed, bow-domes for economical fuel use, stabilizers - these could be abstracted as add-ons, hull lengthening (like the longer Batch3 Type 42 Destroyers having an extra knot-or-two), armoured hull carriers. EMI could be abstracted to a certain amount of systems (and one big system?) for a hull of a certain length - more being packed in per TL.
3) Construction Standards. In Friedman's "British Destroyers and Frigates" there was a comment on the Country Class Destroyer that the USN Bureau of Ships was surprised by the lack of supporting pillars in machinery spaces, this being because the British designers had more leeway to decide on essential parts of the design process, where as BuShips had a more codified process. Brown and Moore expand on this referring to a design study conducted by the RN and USN in the 80s or 90s. Same ship design, but with the differing standards between the two participants came out, IIRC, USN 5250 tons, RN 4800 tons. This gives an enormous fudge factor.
As an aside, there is a ship design program called "Springsharp". It covers naval designs from 1850 to 1950, and is apparently quite good.
Eamon
________________________________
Sent: Tuesday, 3 July 2012, 23:42
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Wet Navy
The design sequence in Challenge was inadequate. We didn't publish wet
navy design sequence because it was going to require lots of extra work to
get at the actual physics of hulls where you increase hull length to beat
wave-making resistance at a slightly increased cost in skin friction on
wetted area, and shaft horsepower increases logarithmically in order to
gain another knot or two, increasing length, increasing and thinning
armor, increasing weight, increasing size again. Simply saying "generic
box" of X volume would not do it. Even if we went to abstractions like
"hull form" we'd still have to explicitly deal with length because of
centerline space for weapons and aircraft.
The test case would be BBs and BCs of 1900-1940. For armor we'd need to
have something relatively simplified around all-or-nothing or all, or
define the vitals so you could encase them, and not forget ancillary
systems like steering. Torpedo protection was never completely solved
historically, and then when you get to TLs where you get reliable
under-keel torpedoes it all falls apart anyway.
The big problem is power vs. length vs. hull volume vs. fineness vs.
buoyancy for all the mass required by armor. Starship design is relatively
simple compared to things that operate in an ecosphere.
Something we'd probably have to hand-wave is electronic interference. Once
you get missile ships which are volume critical rather than weight
critical people would want to pile up missile launchers on those long
centerlines, but that proved impossible in the 50s and 60s due to
electronic interference, but since we don't deal with self-interference
elsewhere in Traveller, introducing it to show why we didn't build the big
BBGs and CGs in the 50s and 60s is a lot of work for not much gain.
Wooden stuff would be easier, as there is an inherent length limit on
working with wood, but that would be abstraction galore. And you'd have to
add sailing rules which account for rig types, crew quality, etc. And FYI,
Lateen rigs can't hardly tack. Fleets of them were dependent on prevailing
winds, sailing downwind seasonally as the winds change. To the extent that
players wanted visualizeable detail on rigs it would be complex, rather
than the generic handwave of "sail rigs are suited to local wind
patterns." And then you get TL as materials limitations vs. TL as
knowledge. For example, "at what TL does sanitation and germ theory
arrive?" Well, if you already know it, you already know it and can
practice it. So are we talking indigenous development or local application
of knowledge readily available in a starfaring culture (because you can
get Lateen rigs to work with advanced materials and concepts)? Et cetera.
Aircraft in Traveller were never really done all that well (COACC and
later), but people didn't complain THAT much, mostly because they designed
grav interface craft instead of aircraft.
Short answer is you can't design USN ships using FF&S, unless you design
the system yourself and deal with the considerations above. And if you
can't get at the fun of Hood vs. Inflexible vs. Lexington vs. Kongo vs.
putting flight decks on them, it's just a bunch of arguments or yawns
waiting to happen. Traveller wants to be all things to all people, but
some parts are harder to get right. I doubt GURPS ever came up with a
maritime design system, did it? If so, I'd like to see it and poke a few
holes in it.
And I haven't even mentioned wing turrets.
> How would you go about designing vessels using FF&S. I know there was a
system devised in Mega Trav in a Challenge mag for this.
> Reason I am asking is because of a discussion I am involved with on
another board and I would like to be able to put a few things together
to
> show as examples of what the USN could field.