"Ratio of Starship Types?" Topic

Just curious how you determine how many of each class of starship to put into your star fleets: battleships, carriers, cruisers, destroyers, etc.

I do it the same way I'd build a group for a WWII naval game.

Mission

I usually go with a squadron of 3-4 spaceships consisting of one large vessel escorts. I stoppped using naval designations for my game, but the equivalent would be a battleship or heavy cruiser + destroyers and/or frigates.

Really depends on the game system, but something like 4:2:1 for Destroyers:Cruisers:Battleships (or whatever names you want to use) seems to be fairly common.

-Will

If I'm trying to emulate modern 'wet navy' forces (for the US Navy, anyway), figure:

1 Capital Ship (BB or CV)
2 Heavy Escorts (Cruiser or large DD that stay with the Capital Ship)
3-4 Light Escorts (these are the FF that would pounce on a target, or get sent away to shield a particular threat axis)
-AND-
1-2 large resupply ships (everyone forgets these)

Of course, the current US Navy formations are more like

1 Carrier
3 DDG or CG (effectively all are missile cruisers)
1 Oiler / Resupply ship

And that's it.

I could really see why Battlestars do make a certain kind of sense…

- Best way not to let someone hack your datalink is not to need one (just one big hurkin ship)

- Want to protect those supplies? … put them behind the armor plating on the battleship

- FTL jumps have to be precise, or the fleet gets scattered? Don't have a fleet – just one ship. At least then your forces don't get split.

I agree with Saber6: the mission determines the composition of the fleet.

Except for those unseen, escorting SSNs – usually 1 or 2 to escort a carrier group, at least back in the day.

I subscribe to the 4:2:1 ratio mentioned above too, and sometimes, even more escorts or cruisers (depending upon if one or the other are reduced in relation to the capital ships, e.g. perhaps 6 x escorts and one capital vessel, or 3 – 4 cruisers to a capital vessel, if fewer, or no escorts.

Like everyone has said, depends on game system, mission, and using historical models as a base line. I am glad someone mentioned SSNs. I would consider these equivalent to a tin can for sci-fi rules.

Another thing to consider, is how historical models and the game system cross. Wet navies tend to have specialized ships, whereas a number of sci-fi rules tend toward well rounded ships and less specialization. I guess the closest historical model would be WWII navies, but with the possible exception of ships with weapons outside the norm, i.e. escort with a big gun.

Varies between 4:2:1, and 9:3:1; truncate the top, extending the lower, often. I tend not to like too many of either the smallest nor the largest, unless strictly a 'swarm.'

That said, I've played specialized ships in my TG's, so the number system can go out the window quickly.

Doug

WW2 Naval: 3x DDs per larger ship, and 3x Cruisers per BB or CV. Makes for ~12x DDs, 3x CA, 1x BB in a Task Force.

Sounds about right, though I thought BB's tended to usually move in pairs or more. Which would 'truncate the top…'

*sigh* I guess I'm old school.

Doug

Well, more BBs would bring another set of a dozen DDs and 3 CAs per BB.

Gives you a squadron of DDs on each compass point and the 3 CAs between the enemy and the BB.

Actually, I'd want to raise the DD ratio, as in space you have 6 "compass points" to cover: the X, Y, and Z axes.

However, with more battleships, you have some overlap of defense area, and the 'little boys' could be in smaller numbers.

US at Leyte had 8 fleet carriers, 12 battleships; even if you added the light (8) and escort carriers (18), to the 24 cruisers, definitely less than 1:3, and there were 'only' 166 DD's.

Now, I suppose you could add the BB's to the CA's as escort. More than balances…

But might be a seem different the way Taffy 3 would have liked to have some BB's around.

I totally admit it muddies the water to describe a whole battle, but does suggest, as you increase numbers, some fudge factor on ratios, some 'economy of scale' towards less units.

as in space you have 6 "compass points"

We've been talking FT.

Played Ad Astra, don't care for it, but it's not quite that simple.

Doug

Seems like WWII is still pretty much the favorite model to work with.

Also heavily depends on the weapons tech in your game though; if you don't have something like a wet-navy torpedo (powerful asymmetric weapon that allows small ships to kill big ships) then you don't really have much use for destroyers or escorts in a fleet battle. In which case your fleet looks like more like an age of sail battleline; lots of battleships, everything else just stays out of the way while they duke it out.

-Will

US at Leyte had 8 fleet carriers, 12 battleships; even if you added the light (8) and escort carriers (18), to the 24 cruisers, definitely less than 1:3, and there were 'only' 166 DD's.

70 ships larger than DD, so yeah, the USN did go light on the DD screen, it's only 1:~2.2. 20 capital ships and 50 cruiser-sized hulls is a 1:2.5 ratio.

as in space you have 6 "compass points"

We've been talking FT.

Played Ad Astra, don't care for it, but it's not quite that simple.

Sure, you can leave out the z-axis if you're only playing in 2d.

Also heavily depends on the weapons tech in your game though; if you don't have something like a wet-navy torpedo (powerful asymmetric weapon that allows small ships to kill big ships) then you don't really have much use for destroyers or escorts in a fleet battle.

Big kinetics will hard-kill any reasonable ship without some kind of PFM shielding, which is why I went with WW2-in-spaaaaace.

Well, until you get up to the multi-km-long monstrosities. Then your torpedoes need some help.

It depends on whether I'm adding to an existing fleet, or starting a whole new one. I recommend that newbies start with what I think of as the "Scharnhorst and Gneisenau" approach, of two identical battlecurisers representing a raiding-in-force task group, or the four-ship heavy cruiser squadron of four identical heavy cruisers. This gives a good dukefest game and having uniform ship types makes it easier for a newbie to get their space legs.

Otherwise if I'm adding to an existing fleet, my philosophy remains the same regardless of genre, namely, "TO CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES, TO SEE THEM DRIVEN BEFORE YOU, AND TO HEAR THE LAMENTATION OF THEIR WOMEN!":

I mean, doesn't everybody cover their table in capital ships?

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

The mission would be part of it – but – you have to also consider the nature of the technology used and need for escorts.

Look further back – about one hundred years before WWI – and fleets were overwhelmingly made of Ships of the Battleline. There were usually a few small ships to serve as scouts and dispatch craft but otherwise, the fleets were all heavies.

A few 3-deckers as flagships for the fleet and/or squadrons and the rest tended to be 2-deckers like classic 74 gunners…

I mean, doesn't everybody cover their table in capital ships?

Playing WW2 naval games you sure do…

The WW2-in-spaaaaaaace model assumes that there are small craft capable of delivering capital-ship-killing weapons, that are maneuverable enough that the capital ship main guns can't engage them.

This produces a need for smaller ships to carry the rapid-laying, rapid-firing guns necessary to engage those small craft.

Battleships post-Dreadnought have one set of guns for smashing the opposing battleships, and a second set of guns that are for smashing the opposing escorts (which often packed a significant threat to the battleship).

And curse you, Leland, I finally succumbed to the Yamato 2199 ships…

Those DBG262s look wicked (and will look even better in Luftwaffe fighter camo than in bomber camo).

Did I mention I 'hate' everyone that makes Cool looking miniatures! LOL
Its just not fair, so many mini's, so little money after those annoying things like FOOD.. Shelter.. etc. etc

SO those are from the Yamato game? Im not familar with the game itself, but I have seen images, pics and some vids in video and game shops. i.e. "BB Yamato 2199"

*Star Cruiser, makes an excellent point. In the days of "Fight Sail", anything with 60 guns or less, IIRC seems to have been asigned either scout or the equivalant of convoy/supply escourt for the 'battleships' of the time, the Ships of the Line, the massive 3 deck warships.

As some others have said it is somewhat dependent on the rules system and the background for the game. With some rules, it just makes sense to focus bigger ships to the exclusion of the smallest units. Others seem to have a 'sweet spot' in the cruiser range.

From a purely personal point of view, I like to field somewhat of a "pyramid" fleet composition, with fewer dreadnaughts/battleships/carriers and more heavy cruiser/light cruisers and even more destroyers/frigates.

SO those are from the Yamato game?

No, plastic ships based on the movie. There are some based on the TV series (we know it as Starblazers). Leland will TALK YOUR EAR OFF on how cheap THOSE… ;>=

I keep thinking Musashi Ent is out of business, but think the game is still going. Smaller metal miniatures with CRAZY etched parts.

Doug

Look further back – about one hundred years before WWI – and fleets were overwhelmingly made of Ships of the Battleline. There were usually a few small ships to serve as scouts and dispatch craft but otherwise, the fleets were all heavies.

A few 3-deckers as flagships for the fleet and/or squadrons and the rest tended to be 2-deckers like classic 74 gunners…

Yes, if your tech base doesn't have a Space Torpedo then there are no Space Torpedo Boats and no Space Torpedo Boat Destroyers and your battlefleet is *ALL* capital ships except for a few attached scouts and dispatch vessels. Which is a perfectly fine model for space warfare as well!

-Will

No, plastic ships based on the movie. There are some based on the TV series (we know it as Starblazers). Leland will TALK YOUR EAR OFF on how cheap THOSE… ;>=

Yup. They're a steal at the current exchange rate. Yamato 2199 series kits:

link

Original Space Battleship Yamato kits:

link

Did I mention there's a third Yamato 2199 canon movie in production?

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

And curse you, Leland, I finally succumbed to the Yamato 2199 ships…

Those DBG262s look wicked (and will look even better in Luftwaffe fighter camo than in bomber camo).

Indeed they are, and indeed they do. I'm sitting on eight unbuilt Garmillas DDG-110 interceptors, three Cosmo Falcons with a fourth Falcon on order to finish off my SD:TNM/Yamato 2199 vanity project, and like you I'll be damned if I'm doing all of those DDG-110s in monotone Garmillas Empire green…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

I have tried a battleship vs four frigates; the battleship won. Going to try a battlecruiser and three frigates vs five destroyers.

@tdkguy: unless your Frigates or Destroyers have capital-ship-killing weapons like how WW2 destroyers had torpedoes, there's too much mass difference.

I'm kinda getting tempted to abuse some definitions for space fleets:
- Frigates, as in the Age of Sail, are "small" ships meant for independent operations. Yeah, I know sailing Frigates were actually the largest independent-ops ships at the time, but it's been too long since then, the Cruiser has a very strong name recognition today.
- Destroyers, as in their original class-name of "Torpedo Boat Destroyers," are small ships meant for escorting bigger ships.
- Cruisers are large ships meant for independent operations (or reinforcing frigates).
- Battleships are large ships meant for fleet operations.

This means that Frigates and Cruisers have stuff other than pure guns. Larger marine/espatier contingents, probably a Law Enforcement detachment assuming a separation between military and law enforcement, a few fighters/gunboats for orbital operations, and enough dropships to land a significant proportion of said marine contingent in a single drop. So more like an upgunned LPD or LSD than an Aegis cruiser (or even the Zumwalt-class DDGs). It also kinda brings the carriers back to their original class description of cruiser, volante.

The Destroyers and Battleships leave that stuff aside for pure beatstickery.

A full-on planetary assault would have Destroyers and Battleships clearing the way for Cruisers and Frigates to deploy the landing forces.

The names have flipped back and forth some over the years, with modern frigates falling under the term escorts, and destroyers being a separate class. It also depends on the navy. Don't forget about corvettes. I believe WWII DEs could be classified as such. Fast torpedo laden attack ships.

@Lion in the Stars: This is an experiment. The destroyers in question are heavily armed with missiles. With good die rolls, they may pick off the frigates and swarm around the cruiser. I recently tried a one-on-one game with a frigate vs. a destroyer, which only has about the same mass, and only a 6-point difference in points. The destroyer pretty much wiped the floor with the frigate, which suggests the destroyer is more powerful than it may seem.

I like Lion in the Star's system, I'm often toyed with something similar. If you're assuming a relatively 'realistic' tech base the requirements for line/wall/cluster of battle and the 'everything else' missions are wide enough different sorts of ships need sense.

-Will

To elucidate the Space Torpedo/Space Torpedo Boat question a bit more:

In Setting A space warships have Graviton Shields that do a dandy job of protecting against everything other than Anti-Graviton Beams, which can pierce the Graviton shield. Larger ships can mount more/stronger/longer ranged Graviton Beams and are built more heavily to survive being battered by the same. In this setting there is no real place for small ships in a battlefleet; bigger ships can hit a smaller ship harder and from further away, and even if the smaller ship gets close it's still hopeless. So fleet engagements are Walls of Battleships shooting each other to pieces, ala the Glorious First of June and other Age of Sail battles. There's all sorts of roles for small ships in other operations that don't involve battlefleets shooting each other to pieces though.

In Setting B space warships use Particle Accelerators, which can be deflected partially by Particle Shields. Big ships mount banks of Particle Accelerators and duke it out at many thousands of kilometers as they attempt to bleed enough energy through the enemy Particle Shields to knock them out. However, physical objects pass through the Particle Shield like it isn't even there, so there's another weapon, the Kinetic Kill Projectile. Due to the maneuverability of ships it's very hard to get a hit from a KKP except at much shorter range; but a couple of hits from a KKP can knock out a heavily shielded battleship. So in this setting some sort of small, maneuverable and expendable vessel to attempt to close the range and carry out a KKP attack makes all sorts of sense, and these ships (and ships designed to stop them) would show up in fleet battles.

Bottom line is decide what sort of model you want to use and invent pseudo-scientific BS to justify it. :)

-Will

Not sure how many consider such, one of the reasons for having more smaller ships is more smaller jobs, if you are looking at a whole navy.

If you also assume build time means for the beginning of any conflict, 'you fight with what you bring,' it's normal to see misuse of ships because of that's what you have.

Part of the mix for 'why the heck did they make that list?' Mini-maxers don't have to consider that.

Doug

I think any universe with interceptable projectiles like missiles will benefit from layered defenses and consequently small escort vessels similar to the modern-day navy formations.

It's also important to note that even in the context of all-big gun fleets like Age of Sail or Age of Dreadnought, there were different classes of heavy ships. The British navy had 6-7 "rates" of ship, around 4 of which were on the battle line, during the napoleonic wars, not including unrated vessels like sloops.

In the Dreadnought age, not only did you have the wide technological disparity between pre-DN Battleships and Dreadnoughts, but there were important differences between early coal-fueled vessels mounting say 12" guns and later, faster oil-fueled BBs with 14 or 15" guns.

Most games however don't bother to give a faction more than one Battleship type.

Yes, a lot of games don't really handle 'incrementally improved classes' all that well.

Good point on the Age of Sail analogies though; the 74 represented the best overall capability/cost effectiveness trade off, but there were larger and smaller 'battleships' and I imagine a space-based analogy would have similar needs.

-Will

Going to try a battlecruiser and three frigates vs five destroyers.

The destroyers in question are heavily armed with missiles. With good die rolls, they may pick off the frigates and swarm around the cruiser.

I playtested this scenario yesterday, and indeed, it went exactly as I predicted. True, the capital ship's rolls were pretty unlucky sometimes, but it still would have picked off just one more destroyer before being destroyed. The battlecruiser had significant defenses that protected it for a while, but eventually all those missiles got through. It did attempt a ram maneuver when all its weapons were disabled. Perhaps I'll write up the battle. Photos of the game can be seen here in the meantime:

link

I replayed the scenario again today to see if the outcome would be different. I ignored any maneuvering and changed the movement scale to speed things up. The result was the same: After all its escorts were destroyed, the capital ship was outnumbered and outgunned. I didn't take any photos of this game or write up what happened each turn.

I may try to see how these destroyers fare against a battleship, which has even better defenses and more powerful weapons.

The system I used was Starmada Compendium. You can find the ship cutouts here:

link

As for Ship class Ratio; WW II changed a LOT of things.
After the Battle of Midway, the Battleship was becoming a very powerful Carrier escort.
And with the exception of a few big gun clashes, that is how it was used.

So it would depend on your game. If a BSG or SW's style game that tend to be fighter heavy, your going to have carriers and fighters galor. Where as ST TOS was much more ship to ship, as such the BB & DN's would be the center of your battle group.