fluffy space battles

[Demoulius]

hello guys,

 

im wondering something here. if i renember correctly i read in a cruisers entry (dont know which one) that generally a single cruiser (or a pair) tend to go on patrols around space. sometimes battleships (in general carriers like the emperor and the oberon) as well.

 

now to make a long story short im wondering what would be a fluffy point limit for a typical naval fight (barring full blown battle for entire sectors and such) would it be limited to a hand full of cruisers or even escorts? a single battleship perhaps? the reason im interest is because many references point out that "in the gothic sector you only have 20 ships" which is what...2000 points or such? which seems...tiny in my eyes.

 

surely a vast space as the imperium is guarded by more then such a small handfull of ships?

 

another thing that bugs is that chaos have their own ships. which seems odd to me since...well..theyre traitors. they have turned from the imperium, but shouldnt they...you know...be many imperial ships then? :D

[Octavulg]

Chaos are supposedly old Imperial ships (there's at least one list that gives Imperials chaos ships as well, and which could probably be used to represent the reverse). Except the current Imperial ships are also ancient, so it's more than a little arbitrary.

 

So, no, it doesn't make much sense. Try not to let it bother you. :lol:

 

It is often amazing just how small a navy is compared to its area of responsibility. Canada has a total of thirty-three ships currently, and about a third of those are support and training. The Russians have about two hundred, the Americans close to three hundred, the British about a hundred.

 

The Royal Navy of the Victorian era (and BFG is very much a reflection of the Age of Sail) had about two or three hundred ships on the go at any one time, and they literally covered the entire planet.

 

According to Lexicanum, a battlefleet has some fifty to seventy-five ships. So a really large-scale battle would probably be about 10000 points.

 

You could have up to a hundred subsectors in a sector, with a dozen worlds in each. It's likely to be less, though - the Imperium is mostly empty space and wilderness.

 

So...yeah.

 

Personally, I think small isolated patrols trying to cover an area they cannot possibly manage is appropriate to the theme. :D

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

well look at it this way, the united states navy has a total of 12 nuclear aircraft carriers and normally cruise with 3 maybe 4 escorts, those carrier groups are used to project power all over the world, and normally only half are ever in an active/ready status. watching a PBS show documenting a carrier group's deployment the admiral said that there is about 14-16 ships in the persian gulf between the entire coalition forces. so in an active warzone there are less than 20 ships, not all of them belong to the same country even.

 

if a single sector has 20 ships that would be like 20 ships per ocean or sea (at least that's how i see it.)

 

personally i see a fluffy fleet for a sector to be something like...

 

2 battleships

5-7 heavy-grand cruisers

7-9 light cruisers-cruisers

10+ escorts of various classes.

[Direach]

From all the info included in Dark Heresy and particularly Rogue Trader, it seems safe to say that a naval patrol typically consists of one cruiser and 2-3 escort frigates. This is enough to outfight most threats and outrun what can't be outfought.

 

It is highly unlikely that you will find battleships on patrol duty; they're too valuable to have wandering around doing the work of smaller, faster ships. Battleships seem to be used to guard valuable systems, and deployed as part of a fleet group when serious (and preferably slow-moving) trouble rears its head (or tentacles).

[Demoulius]

well offcourse i knew the 40k fluff on "were outnumbered/outgunned and attacked on all sides" etc etc. but 50-75 ships a sector (never mind the sectors with many sub-sectors) seemed a bit....overly stretched in my eyes but now that you mention does match the fluff :blush:

 

on the subject of patrols: the entry on the oberon says its sometimes goes "with little or no escort coverage" on patrols. IIRC some of the heavy cruisers entries also made this claim.

 

for the oberon (a battleship that has some carrier capabilities) this doesent seem so odd. for some heavy cruisers though? theyre big but easily overwhelmed imho. specialy when going in some place on their own. a pair might be able to pull it off but a single ship? :huh:

 

now mind you the enties (for example the vengeance grand cruiser) also note that this tactic generally doesent quite work so well. or that the eye "suddenly" expands and devours the poor little sods.

 

aside from the several exceptions though it seems likely to me as well that 1-2 cruiser+escorts would be a perfect patrol. you have (fluffwise) staying power to beat all but the grandest of ships (battlecruisers and battleships) and in case you are overwhelmed generally some ships can get out of the intermediate area to warn the rest of the fleet (if all else fails ;) )

 

space marine fleet patrols are IMHO made up entirely of strike craft, correct? strike cruisers are to rare and to few to go out on patrolling duties if i understand a chapters organisation right :ermm:

 

and on the subject of current life fleets. thats actually a very valid point....and i had no idea fleets were that small either :(

 

now mind you our current fleets are more about stopping outside infiltrators (and in times of strife invaders) out of your country and keeping criminals in check while 40k fleets are made to crush, kill and destroy invaders. small difference :devil:

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

well offcourse i knew the 40k fluff on "were outnumbered/outgunned and attacked on all sides" etc etc. but 50-75 ships a sector (never mind the sectors with many sub-sectors) seemed a bit....overly stretched in my eyes but now that you mention does match the fluff :blush:

 

on the subject of patrols: the entry on the oberon says its sometimes goes "with little or no escort coverage" on patrols. IIRC some of the heavy cruisers entries also made this claim.

 

for the oberon (a battleship that has some carrier capabilities) this doesent seem so odd. for some heavy cruisers though? theyre big but easily overwhelmed imho. specialy when going in some place on their own. a pair might be able to pull it off but a single ship? :huh:

 

now mind you the enties (for example the vengeance grand cruiser) also note that this tactic generally doesent quite work so well. or that the eye "suddenly" expands and devours the poor little sods.

 

aside from the several exceptions though it seems likely to me as well that 1-2 cruiser+escorts would be a perfect patrol. you have (fluffwise) staying power to beat all but the grandest of ships (battlecruisers and battleships) and in case you are overwhelmed generally some ships can get out of the intermediate area to warn the rest of the fleet (if all else fails :( )

 

space marine fleet patrols are IMHO made up entirely of strike craft, correct? strike cruisers are to rare and to few to go out on patrolling duties if i understand a chapters organisation right :ermm:

 

and on the subject of current life fleets. thats actually a very valid point....and i had no idea fleets were that small either :D

 

now mind you our current fleets are more about stopping outside infiltrators (and in times of strife invaders) out of your country and keeping criminals in check while 40k fleets are made to crush, kill and destroy invaders. small difference :devil:

i'm actually learning quite a bit about the british during the early 1800's from the book 'six frigates' which details the war of 1812. for the entire western hemisphere from canada to the Caribbean the british had about 70 ships, all of which had to do blockade details, convoy, patrols, as well as commerce raiding.

70 may seem like a lot, but when you think about how long it took to get from point A to point B back then and the fact that many of those ships were away on convoy duties escorting merchant vessels back to england (even before the war with america they were still at war with the french.)

 

so i really don't see any problem with 70 or less ships per sector.

[Demoulius]

i guess thats where planetary defences come in :rolleyes:

[mysteriousmaskedmystery]

actually, i believe the emperor class says it goes on patrols too? or maybe i'm also thinking of the oberon. and the mars has its own flight deck and a nova cannon, so it can do a lot of things on its own.

 

space marine "patrols" are strike cruisers for sure. a space marine patrol is about being in the right place when a distress call is recieved. a strike craft is just a sitting duck in most cases, and really, the space marines are there more to go and help defend or attack worlds, relatively few chapters are truly involved in protecting open space or space lanes.

[Demoulius]

true, but generally space marines will at least keep their own system free from invaders correct? :devil: hard to fly around and do stuff when there are constantly taking pod shots at your fleet :rolleyes:

[Direach]

It's not that hard to intrude on a system, even an Astartes-held system... but it's hard to do anything effective without them falling on you like a ton of bricks. If there's one thing Astartes are good at, it is responding with overwhelming force to any challenge to their territory. The longer you stick around, the harder the hammer is going to come down. But if you want to stick your nose into the Macragge system and then run, they can't do much about it, unless you are foolish enough to deliberately close on one of their ships.

 

One thing that 40K often fails to get across is how big space is: there is plenty of room to sneak around. Another thing 40K seems to ignore entirely is relativistic effects: a ship entering a system cannot be seen or detected until the light from that ship reaches some kind of sensor or receiver. And because of the aforementioned size of space (really quite big indeed), it would take literally billions of sensors to monitor the perimeter of a system. That may in fact be the case with the Terran system, but no others.

 

In short, if realism plays ANY part, 99.9/100 space battles take place when both sides want a battle to take place, because it's easy to avoid other ships and easy to get away. On the other hand, in 40K's "space is like a swimming pool" depiction, space battles happen all the time because everyone is swimming way too close together.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

It's not that hard to intrude on a system, even an Astartes-held system... but it's hard to do anything effective without them falling on you like a ton of bricks. If there's one thing Astartes are good at, it is responding with overwhelming force to any challenge to their territory. The longer you stick around, the harder the hammer is going to come down. But if you want to stick your nose into the Macragge system and then run, they can't do much about it, unless you are foolish enough to deliberately close on one of their ships.

 

One thing that 40K often fails to get across is how big space is: there is plenty of room to sneak around. Another thing 40K seems to ignore entirely is relativistic effects: a ship entering a system cannot be seen or detected until the light from that ship reaches some kind of sensor or receiver. And because of the aforementioned size of space (really quite big indeed), it would take literally billions of sensors to monitor the perimeter of a system. That may in fact be the case with the Terran system, but no others.

 

In short, if realism plays ANY part, 99.9/100 space battles take place when both sides want a battle to take place, because it's easy to avoid other ships and easy to get away. On the other hand, in 40K's "space is like a swimming pool" depiction, space battles happen all the time because everyone is swimming way too close together.

you seem to be forgetting that astropaths and navigators can sense a ship traveling through the warp (according to some black library fluff) which allows a single man to keep an eye on a VERY large portion of space.

[Direach]

True, but both astropaths and navigators are usually tasked to their primary jobs; only the most valuable systems (Terra) are likely to have anything like full-time Warp-sensitive coverage. And even then, their ability to sense disturbances in local Warp space is limited in range, and by the the size of the disturbance: a small ship (frigate or smaller) does not create much Warp turbulence (not like a battlegroup). And some enemies (like Necrons) don't even use Warp travel, and are effectively invisible to that method of detection.

[Vaaish]

In BFG terms, your typical fluffy engagement would be around 500 points. Enough to take a cruiser or light cruiser and a handful of escorts. Your typical fleet engagement would be around 1500-2k points. Enough for a battleship, 5-6 cruisers, and maybe some escorts. Anything above that is almost a crusade level event or an imminent doom once you get into the area >50 ships.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

True, but both astropaths and navigators are usually tasked to their primary jobs; only the most valuable systems (Terra) are likely to have anything like full-time Warp-sensitive coverage. And even then, their ability to sense disturbances in local Warp space is limited in range, and by the the size of the disturbance: a small ship (frigate or smaller) does not create much Warp turbulence (not like a battlegroup). And some enemies (like Necrons) don't even use Warp travel, and are effectively invisible to that method of detection.

there's probably one high level psyker in every fleet that is on watch duty all the time, but that aside, an astropath or navigator doesn't really need to 'actively' watching, if they feel a 'ripple' in the warp chances are they're going to let someone know.

 

i can't remember what book it was, but one of them said something about astropaths can only feel the size of the ripple or wake, while a navigator could give class approximations because of the third eye.

 

but you're right a single destroyer or frigate sized ship doesn't make much of a 'wake' but who is going to enter a hostile system with only a single escort classed ship? at the very least it would be a squadron of escorts which would make plenty of wake to be noticed.

[Direach]

Eldar and Dark Eldar seem to have no difficulty slipping in and out of Imperial systems totally unseen, right up until they strike. Orks... not as sneaky. Chaos, can be sneaky, but more likely to lurk outside a system until they're ready to come swarming in. Necrons, multiple overlapping shields of plot armour, undetectable until they choose not to be. Tyranids aren't sneaky, but with the Shadow in the Warp they don't need to be.

 

I don't actually remember what the discussion originally was... how likely/unlikely a ship battle was? Or how many ships would be involved? I think I got off track here...

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Eldar and Dark Eldar seem to have no difficulty slipping in and out of Imperial systems totally unseen, right up until they strike. Orks... not as sneaky. Chaos, can be sneaky, but more likely to lurk outside a system until they're ready to come swarming in. Necrons, multiple overlapping shields of plot armour, undetectable until they choose not to be. Tyranids aren't sneaky, but with the Shadow in the Warp they don't need to be.

 

I don't actually remember what the discussion originally was... how likely/unlikely a ship battle was? Or how many ships would be involved? I think I got off track here...

the number of ships in a sector's fleet which then became what is required to effectively police a system, to detection methods.