[GZG] Cruisers and Destroyers in the FT world

["Thomas Barclay" <kaladorn@xxxxxxxx>]

Something somebody said made some sense to me and I wanted to hold it up to the light of
the FT future...

In the world of wet navy of days of old, a Cruiser was just that. It had the endurance and
capabilities (crew accomodation, fuel, ammunition, etc) to contemplate lengthy cruises.
Frigates, Destroyers, and Corvettes much less so (yes, they did cross the Atlantic, but
they just weren't up to taking some of the seas the bigger boats could handle nor could
they manage some of the sorts of things large ships could, such as squadron command, etc
without difficulty - they didn't have the space). And they weren't as pointed out, really
meant to go toe to toe with battlewagons from the van of the main fleet. 

Also, I don't know if it applies in the days of powered boating, but there are formula for
roughing out how many knots a sailboat should be able to make and it relates to keel
length (perhaps waterline length might be more appropos). A 150' sailboat is a *heck* of a
lot faster across long distances than a 30' boat. I wonder if, due to economy of scale
principles, large ships like the cruisers could outspeed destroyers? (Don't have the stats
handy...). Probably differing relative percentages of mass devoted to armour and ordinance
play into that consideration. But I'm betting that generally, over the longer distance
(not the sprint), a cruiser or a bigger vessel could outsteam a smaller ship. Heck,
recently I was in Hawaii and was shocked at how fast a CV could disappear out over the
horizon once it got up some steam.... fast. And you'd want your cruisers to be able to
outrun your BBs and other ships that they might (with bad luck) run into on their long
cruising missions. 

So, where does this take us in the world of FT? Well... we're in space. That's a good
starting point. Obviously that imposes certain minimum restrictions on how cramped/short
endurance a vessel can be. Even a DD has to be able to make hyper jumps and support crew
for a fairly lengthy time, self contained. But maybe a cruiser has more of this? A cruiser
might also be the size of ship that can actually refuel from smaller tankers, unlike your
big SDNs, which may need to travel with dedicated fuel and ammo supplies in large
colliers. (Depends on background) Anyway, the point is your equivalent of a MTB or similar
short endurance combatant of small size would be non-FTL strikeboats or fighters. Your DDs
and such would look a bit more like a classic cruiser in terms of capability and
self-sufficiency just because of the limitations imposed by the environment of space. 

This brings to mind another aspect of the campaign game which might trickle down into ship
designs - allocating extra space for things like flag bridges for squadron command or
allocating additional space for crew comfort and supplies and fuel to allow longer
cruising operations. These are things which should show up as a few cargo spaces or the
like on long-distance commerce or penetration raiders, but we don't have any designs that
look this way right now officially. 

But if you enjoy the idea of your FT sort of looking a bit like naval conflict between
1900 and 1940, then having the BBs and SDNs doing a lot of sailing around in squadrons and
staying home a fair bit (unless they have an objective in being out) while having cruisers
zip around too and fro and DDs act as escorts when and where their reduced legs and
endurance aren't an issue would be the sorts of things you'd want your campaign rules to
encourage. 

More thinking to be done here. I suppose if I have some time, I'll have to consider the
idea of a campaign points system that might encourage this sort of flavour. 

TomB












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