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Old 01-27-2021, 10:43 AM   #1
jason taylor
 
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Default Missile Loads

Is it possible to load missiles from ammunition ships to warships?
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Old 01-27-2021, 11:11 AM   #2
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: Missile Loads

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Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
Is it possible to load missiles from ammunition ships to warships?
I'm afraid the best answer I can come up with is "Why wouldn't it be?".

I will note that with a standard turret launcher having a load of 77 it's a problem that doesn't come up often.
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Old 01-27-2021, 11:40 AM   #3
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Default Re: Missile Loads

The US Navy does it as "underway replenishment". You can find some official procedure docs online. Would be easier in space without waves rocking the ships.
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Old 01-27-2021, 11:56 AM   #4
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Default Re: Missile Loads

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
I'm afraid the best answer I can come up with is "Why wouldn't it be?".

I will note that with a standard turret launcher having a load of 77 it's a problem that doesn't come up often.
I suppose because it was hard for me to picture how to reload shipkillers from another ship at a rate capable of keeping up with sustained operations. Secondaries now seem a different story.

I guess it's a matter of how large the missile is versus how large the ship.
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Old 01-27-2021, 02:37 PM   #5
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Default Re: Missile Loads

Remember that classic Traveller wasn't really aware of kinetic kill munitions, so "ship killer" really means "nuclear warhead."
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Old 01-27-2021, 03:11 PM   #6
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Default Re: Missile Loads

I'm not sure the missile carriers would load missiles to the larger ships during a battle, but they could easily do this afterwards.

I would hope that navy ships do their best to keep a full load of missiles.
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Old 01-27-2021, 09:08 PM   #7
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: Missile Loads

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Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
I suppose because it was hard for me to picture how to reload shipkillers from another ship at a rate capable of keeping up with sustained operations. Secondaries now seem a different story.

I guess it's a matter of how large the missile is versus how large the ship.
This is where it becomes important that the classic Traveller missile is only 300 lbs (300mm caliber). Starships introduced a 500 mm missile to try and change this a little.

Now when the Gurps Traveller (loosely Ve2-based) combat system was implemented it was discovered thast even the simplest GTL10 "civilian" missile (able to accelerate at 6Gs for 1 hour) _was_ a shipkiller. If you're able to give it the full 1 hour run it'll hit at a little over 130 miles per second (plus whatever it had from the launching ship) and it will explode like a meteor for just over 1 kiloton of TNT. That's devastating as a contact explosion.

Flipping through Starships did give me the tidbits that extra missiles can be carried as cargo but not reloaded during battle. Times to reload are given.

Were the whole thing mine to design the missile launchers would have access from inside and outside and the outside ports would be amenable to things that worked like stripper clips and didn't have to load the missiles one at a time.
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Old 01-28-2021, 02:52 PM   #8
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Default Re: Missile Loads

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Remember that classic Traveller wasn't really aware of kinetic kill munitions, so "ship killer" really means "nuclear warhead."
Which is weird because Sandcasters...
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Old 02-02-2021, 03:07 PM   #9
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Default Re: Missile Loads

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Remember that classic Traveller wasn't really aware of kinetic kill munitions, so "ship killer" really means "nuclear warhead."
Although hitting with a kinetic kill weapon is a serious challenge. Fighter jets and SCUD missiles move a lot slower, and are less capable of evasive maneuvers directed against specific threats, than Traveller starships, and yet surface to air or antiballistic missiles have a fairly substantial miss rate.

Even a conventional explosive means the cross sectional area you need to put the missile through to stand a good chance of killing the target is probably dozens of times larger. For a nuke, it's probably thousands of times.
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