Making Carriers Carry: a Mass Combat tweak
 

Basic Mass Combat rules have carriers as a single 48,000 TS element, including its air wing.

Considering that (this prevents naval aircraft from participating in in-land battles, and)(incorrect) it decreases the ability to use carriers in unconventional ways (replacing the aircrews and systems with stone-age warriors, for instance), I sought to provide an alternative.

I would change it so that the carrier includes only its built-ins. The stats are:

This makes Fleet Carriers approximately equal to stock carriers provided they are stocked with Jet Fighter-Bombers, and it makes a TL8 Flagship Carrier have a similar total number of aircraft as a modern carrier.

For further compartmentalization, the Flagship Carrier should contain a Command Post that is purchased separately and cannot be removed without an overhaul. On the other hand, it doesn't take up transport space. One other special rule: Carriers can only refuel and support aircraft of the same quality level and lower, and only of the same TL; one can't skimp out on the carriers to buy better planes.

I think that the T816 capacity actually does make some sense. I suppose that, if you hollowed out an aircraft carrier and removed everything related to, you know, aircraft, you could get the thing to carry 8,160 screaming stone-age warriors if you wanted to. The GM should do some sanity checking so that players understand that such an operation would be a major overhaul of the ship, and not as simple as rolling the aircraft into the sea and saying "ALL ABOARD!"

Among other advantages, this allows military planners to specialize for specific missions with an assortment of aircraft. As a rule of thumb, GMs should probably assume that 50% of a given aircrafts' WT is in fact equipment that's bolted down and would take serious effort to remove.

Updated version with more accurate TS and C3I coverage:

Re: Making Carriers Carry: a Mass Combat tweak
 

I like the idea, but I'd also wish to point out that if the Carrier is in range of a land battle, it can be used. It belongs to the Air Class, so, regardless of its Mobility, it can participate in a land campaign (p. 26), as long as the GM decides that it is within useful range.

Re: Making Carriers Carry: a Mass Combat tweak
 

Spaceships has around 70% of a Hangar Bay's mass actually taken up by the craft within, with the other 30% being for the sort of equipment you're referring to. However, that doesn't include the fuel and ammunition a carrier typically carries for its aircraft complement, so your 50% figure looks like it's probably in the right ballpark.

Re: Making Carriers Carry: a Mass Combat tweak
 

I neglected the cost of the aircraft one presumably loads onto one's carrier. It turns out that 60 Jet fighter-bombers cost exactly as much as the stock carrier.

I'll try to figure out a fair cost for an "empty" aircraft carrier. It might actually be quite cheap.

Re: Making Carriers Carry: a Mass Combat tweak
 

I like what you are doing, but something doesn't feel right. Without it's airwing, I'd expect even the biggest modern carriers to have maybe a triple digit TS, not a 5 digit TS, unless you mean it's TS is purely C3I, then I can roll with it.

Edit: Thinking about it, the best Mass Combat model for a carrier would be a fortress you can freely move around the ocean that carries an airwing and has several infantry units to repel and amphibious attacks (boarders). They arguably aren't really Naval units in the Mass Combat sense.

Re: Making Carriers Carry: a Mass Combat tweak
 

They participated in naval campaigns (mostly WWII in the pacific) as warships. With the range of abstractions Mass Combat encompasses, I'm not sure how they can not be Naval units.

Re: Making Carriers Carry: a Mass Combat tweak
 

Not really. Carriers don't attack by themselves, though they do defend. It's probably most accurate to class Carriers as a special type of Logistics.

Re: Making Carriers Carry: a Mass Combat tweak
 

But carriers are directly attacked, not just hit in Raids. If you have a series of carrier battles that are solely raids so that you can actually sink the carrier, you have a rather weird Mass Combat game.

Giving carriers a small TS and C3I and a huge T capability seems the best way to represent them.

Re: Making Carriers Carry: a Mass Combat tweak
 

If that were the case, then it would be a case to define them as having the Neutralize Naval capability, i.e. (Nav), in GURPS Mass Combat code.

But I'm not so sure that's a good solution. Sure, carriers don't go around unescorted. Is that because they cannot or because that's not good tactics (nor good strategy)? Tanks also stopped going around in tank-only large units at some time in the initial stages of WWII; that wasn't because they couldn't, but because combined arms worked immensely better.

Re: Making Carriers Carry: a Mass Combat tweak
 

A carrier without an airwing is like a tank without it's turret, it's most potent attack is now ramming. This isn't combined arms changing tactics, it's a weapon platform without it's weapon, it can move around but little else. The wises course of action is to leave the battle and get a new weapon.

The handful of weapons a carrier has could be considered (Nav) and (Air) because they can (maybe, hopefully) shoot up suicide bomb boats and incoming missiles, but having served on one I'd rather we just ran away and not kill 3000 people and a billion dollar ship for no reason.

This obviously doesn't apply to the hybrid battleship carriers that briefly existed in WW2.