This may be considered an "obvious variant" but here goes anyway.

Drone bombardment thinking ran in two directions: larger, toward scount-channel-assisted ships that could possibly defend themsleves if attacked, amd smaller toward cheap drone-delivery systems. The "smaller" approach reached its most extreme form with drone bombardment PF.

The PF had to be stripped or nearly stripped of weaponry to accomodate the necessary drone racks and cargo space. They were considered a cheap, almost throwaway source of bombardment support. They tended to be unpopular with PF crews.

PFs usually carried three racks and 2 cargo boxes that were pre-loaded with drones before the PFT left its base.

A PFT on a bombardment mission normally carried 6 bombardment PF. No leaders or scouts were ever built or used since the PF were never intended to operate independently of the tender.

Kzinti: Changes to drone PF: Remove APR and P-1, replace with cargo. There is no MRN version.

Klingon: Changes to Drone PF: Remove both FX P-2s, replace with cargo.

WYN: Changes to standard PF: Remove disruptor, replace with drone. Remove both P-1s, replace with cargo.

Fed Conjectural: Changes to drone PF: Remove both P-1s, replace with cargo.

YIS: Y183

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 - 03:22 pm: Edit

So you are trying for a PF with the "DB" note on the MSC right?

1st problem that comes to mind is that all Drone-Bombardment ships have B-racks, not A-racks that are found on PFs.

2nd problem, having the crew to reload a drone-rack from a cargo space while in flight, look to the Klingon G1 deck plans to see how cramped PFs are.

3rd problem, there aren't even SC-4 DB ships, except for the Kzintis. The Klingons and Feds don't get a SC-4 DB ship at all.

By Gary Bear (Gunner) on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 - 03:24 pm: Edit

4th problem, PFs do not carry drone reloads and, presumably, their racks are not designed to reload internally.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 - 03:43 pm: Edit

An A-Rack has the same long-term throw weight as a B-Rack so that shouldn't be the limiting factor. I think the space required to load internally will be what sinks this proposal. How many torpedoes were stored on early (tiny) submarines? How accurate is it to compare a submarine to a PF?

Now if the DB mission could be performed while using the PFT to reload the drones I think you may have something. The PFT could reload three PFs while the other three were launching. In theory it could be made to work, but I've seen similar (non-PF) proposal's rejected.

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 - 04:48 pm: Edit

Since only the Kzinti had SC-4 DB ships, they would logically be the ones to develop these (if anyone). How about stripping down the rest of the PF for extra internal bracing (no Ph-1, Disr, or APR) and using 2 "D-racks", one in each side pod? This way, 6 DB Needles could throw 6 Type 3XXF drones for 12 turns (or 12 for 6 turns) and there is no reloading necessary. Of course if the PFT supported them it could reload the PFs and extend the mission.

By Steven E. Ehrbar (See) on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 - 05:35 pm: Edit

Okay, it's a heck of a lot more efficient economically and operationally to build and operate a DB ship than a PFT and six DB PFs. So no PFT is going to be on permanent DB assignment; you'd build an actual DB ship instead if you wanted dedicated DB capability. It's only going to be an occasional contingency use.

And it's logistically intensive to keep six PFs and a whole bunch of Type III-XX drones up near a PFT just as a reserve capability. I'd rather have a DB ship in theater that I'd usually use as a scout or even a normal combat ship than 120 EPV of DB PFs sitting in cargo holds.

But, were I to lose my DB ship in a theater, it would probably be faster for the folks back home to run off a few DB PFs than to build a new DB ship. Send them up in resupply to serve as a stopgap while a new DB ship is being built . . .

Hmm.

I'd rather have a flotilla capable of independent DB strikes. If you can reload the racks from on-PF cargo --

The pre-refit Kzinti SDF has six A-racks and 100 spaces of cargo, for 148 spaces of drones and a sustained launch rate of 3 drones/turn.

Klingon DB Flotilla: 1 G1 Leader, 1 G1 Scout, 4 "DB" PFs -- take the Cargo PF, and revert the right and left "wing" cargo boxes to the standard G1 A-racks. Has the scout PF to provide targeting and the flotilla can maintain a sustained launch rate of 4 drones/turn with a total of 244 spaces of drones.

Kzinti MRN DB Flotilla: The MRNs should be able to handle this fine -- the MRN drone has two drone racks per outrigger, the MRN cargo has two cargo per outrigger, the MRN scout has two drone racks and two special sensors per outrigger, MRN DBs should be able to manage 1 cargo and 1 drone per outrigger. Sustained rate of 4 drones/turn with a total of 240 spaces of drones, and the flotilla manages to also have six disruptors for self-defense.

Kzinti Standard Needle DB Flotilla: I'd be tempted to take three cargo needles and just replace the ph-1 with a second drone rack, and call them DB needles. Put together a flotilla of 1 leader, 1 scout, and four of these DBs, for a sustained rate of 4 drones/turn with 394 spaces of drones. Okay, how you're physically getting the drones from the cargo to the racks, I can't figure out, but . . .

By James Cain (Jcain) on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 - 05:45 pm: Edit

"No leaders or scouts were ever built or used since the PF were never intended to operate independently of the tender."

So instead of risking a DB ship, you risk a PFT and a custom-built PF flotilla? Sounds like anything but "They were considered a cheap, almost throwaway source of bombardment support."

I suggest that if this is to work at all, a scout PF be included to allow them to operate independently of the tender to keep the tender (hopefully) out of danger.

Actually, upon futher thought, I suggest Kzinti drone PF flotillas might be able to do some bombardment without any modifications - they carry 3 B racks each, so that's 9 Type 3XXF drones per PF, including a regular PF scout gives the flotilla 49 Type 3XXF drones. That's good enough for threatening a convoy, small colony, or small orbital base, but I would not ever think it rates anywhere near the level needed for a F&E DB rating.

By Craig Tenhoff (Cktenhoff) on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 - 05:53 pm: Edit

Or why not just send a single DF, since it cost less than an entire PF flotila?

Seriously, considering the mission and the cost of the assets. One DF is how many BPV and a full PFT and 6 DB Needles is how many? A more apt comparision might be between a SDF and a DF, since a Special Sensor to support a Drone Mission is usually a plus, and they have the same number of D-Racks if IIRC. However, the SDF and DF still probably cost less (I know they do in F&E).

To answer Tos's question. Again from memory, normal WWII designs had one reload aft and up to two reloads forward.

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 - 05:55 pm: Edit

The main problem I see with this proposal is that PFs do not have the long range sensors to execute this mission. The special sensors on Scout PFs are not nearly as powerful as a Scout ship, or even the sensors on a ships. See the chart in (D17.3).

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 - 06:06 pm: Edit

It seems like people are talking about atleast two separate (and possibly mutally exclusive) concepts here:

1. a Drone bombardment mission for a PFT and its attached PF squadron. (note that the PFT would have special sensors eliminating the need, perse, of having an indigineous scout PF).

2. an independent Drone Bombardment mission for a PF DB squadron without a PFT.

If you choose the first option, then reloading the PF's is simply a matter of recovering the PF's reloading them on the PFT using the deck crews already assigned, and (possibly) not even needing any hardware changes to the PFT or the PF's.

If you choose the second option, you need rules for allowing the PF's the ability to reload drones on board the individual PF's without deck crews, casual carrier rules or any other existing rule since what you want is the ability to reload PF's without a carrier PFT or base.

The first option might be intellectually interesting but unlikely to make much of a difference to SFB's other than scenario option of attacking the PFT DB group during the launch phase.

It would mean a potential material change to F&E where PFT's become instant DB groups.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 - 06:58 pm: Edit

Four things.

1.) The drone bombardment PF idea has been proposed and rejected before.

2.) PFs cannot reload drone racks. If they could reload their drone racks, they could obviously also repair and re-arm fighters on mech links. Not interested in opening that can of worms.

3.) Cargo boxes on PFs are traditionally half space cargo boxes, i.e., they hold 25 spaces, not 50 spaces.

4.) Irrespective of what Tos thinks (sorry Tos), the standard for a DB vessel is type-B drone racks, not less than six such drone racks, and at least 100 spaces of drone (cargo) storage in addition to the normal rack reloads. The Kzinti DF/SDF are a noted exception (having type-A drone racks replaced by type-B in the Y175 refit and having only 100 spaces of cargo storage), but were intended to operate in groups and not independently. In any case, while the total drone throw weight of a type-A- rack (having only two spaces and being made up solely for this purpose)
the set standard since Drone Bombardment was formalized is six type-B drone racks (the DF was grandfathered in with its A racks).

By Bennett Eugene Snyder (Planner) on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 - 10:27 pm: Edit

Isn't the F5D a drone bombardment ship?

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 - 10:52 pm: Edit

No, the F5D uses drones as an alternative to disruptors, but it cannot do the long range bombardment. Only ships listed as "DB" on the MSC.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 - 11:21 pm: Edit

Dup

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 - 11:32 pm: Edit

The Kzinti LCD also managed the DB mission using only A-racks. They would likely have converted more LCS to this design had their slow speed not made them vulnerable to counter raids.

In fact, of the 15 DB ships I've identified only half always had the standard 6xB-Racks; making this a rather loose standard.

(F-CAD, F-CLD, F-NCD, F-NDC, Z-CD, Z-LCD, Z-MDC, Z-NCD, Z-DF, Z-SDF, Z-SDW, K-D6D, K-DWD, W-DDG, W-ZDF)

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Thursday, January 04, 2007 - 02:22 am: Edit

1. Didn't know that and apparently few other people did either. And a workable idea could still be accepted, couldn't it?

2. Me either.

3. I think the PFT would get the job of reloading PFs in rotation if 12 Type III-XXF per PF (72 per flotilla) wasn't enough. I have no idea of how many drones you have to throw around for 1 DB mission, but of the 172 spaces (pre-175 refit, 208 after) that you're talking about for the DB ships (except the DF), this PF flotilla with D-racks has 144 and the PFT will have 150 more (294).

4. Actually I believe the standard was changed somewhat recently with D-racks on the Kzinti DN(D), LAD, and SAD (and long ago with the Kzinti drone pods also). That's why I proposed using D-racks. You don't have to reload them to launch 6 2-space drones, unlike the A and B racks which carry 2 and 3 2-space drones respectively.

A "normal" DB ship shoots 3 waves of drones and then has to reload, a PF flotilla with D-racks can use 3 PFs to shoot this (actually 6 waves), have the other 3 take over while the first three are being reloaded, and keep switching off until they're done with no gap in the bombardment. And if you're concerned about being intercepted just switch off every 3 waves so your PFs will always have some drones aboard for self defense (maybe other types too).

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, January 04, 2007 - 05:41 am: Edit

Another area of concern ( other than the limited sensor range of PFs ) is the fact that PF engines "glass up" over 24 hours and DB ships are real ships and can run their engines non-stop for months. Net result; the long range chucking of the DB-PF is serverly handicapped by the limited range of the PFs themselves.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, January 04, 2007 - 12:34 pm: Edit

Michael Lui:

The only way to make it a workable concept would be to change the way PFs operated. Not going to happen. PFs do not carry reload drones and cannot reload their drones outside of a PFT.

D racks are not actually a change in the standard, but are simply superior to the type-B drone rack in the mission in that they are able to continuously launch drones and get the whole drone loadout launched faster than a ship with B racks can. Six non-D racks gives you a maximum sustained launch rate of just three drones a turn. Six D-Racks gives you a maximum sustained drone launch rate of six drones a turn PLUS the ability to have one magazine of each D-rack loaded with normal type-IF drones to allow the ship to immediately engage an intruder without expending bombardment drones. The problem is simply that there are not many ships that can mount D-racks.

Normal DB ships do not launch six drones and then reload (with the exception of the D rack versions), they launch three drones a turn continuously (launch drones from racks #1, #3, and #5 for three turns, then launch drones from racks #2, #4, and #6 while racks #1, #3, and #5 are reloaded, the launch drones from #1, #3, and #5 while racks #2, #4, and #6 reload.

Flying in PFs to dock to a PF tender to have their racks reloaded, then relaunching them to launch drones is not an efficient use of a PF, or a PF Tender.

No PF flotilla by itself can be configured to reload its own drones, and if it could be configured to do so, it would not have enough remaining internal volume to carry to the needed stocks of drones.

Proposal was rejected previously on review of above data. Above data remains, and the concept is again rejected.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, January 04, 2007 - 12:34 pm: Edit

Thanks for the clarifications, SPP.

Proposal withdrawn.

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Thursday, January 04, 2007 - 02:39 pm: Edit

SPP

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Quote:

Normal DB ships do not launch six drones and then reload (with the exception of the D rack versions), they launch three drones a turn continuously (launch drones from racks #1, #3, and #5 for three turns, then launch drones from racks #2, #4, and #6 while racks #1, #3, and #5 are reloaded, the launch drones from #1, #3, and #5 while racks #2, #4, and #6 reload.

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Quote:

The only way to make it a workable concept would be to change the way PFs operated. Not going to happen. PFs do not carry reload drones and cannot reload their drones outside of a PFT.

No PF flotilla by itself can be configured to reload its own drones, and if it could be configured to do so, it would not have enough remaining internal volume to carry to the needed stocks of drones.

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By Douglas E. Lampert (Dlampert) on Thursday, January 04, 2007 - 03:08 pm: Edit

Since the PFT carries the drones in use in a bombardment mission, and is the source of the Special Sensors to support the bombardment mission, why not skip the middleman and build a Drone Bombardment PFT? Then the PF's can do what they're best at (carry standard combat loads and fight if someone intercepts), and the PFT can do the bombardment.

"Oh no! They've intercepted my bombardment mission, I have almost no standard drones on board any of the three ships and all my racks are full of type IIIXX drones or empty. Whatever will I do. Oh, I forgot, I've got these 15 other racks just sitting on fully armed and ready PF's + the PF scout, I guess I'll use them."

Need to be a big PFT to have the required six racks in addition to all the other systems needed. But that should be doable.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, January 04, 2007 - 03:14 pm: Edit

Michael Lui:

I am not sure why you require this to be answered, and the only available data is that provided by Federation and Empire which notes three things:

1.) That a DF can perform the mission.

2.) That all ships are assumed to have their refits.

3.) That the cost of doing so is 1/10 of an Economic Point per drone factor per combat round.

A DF using its full bombardment factor for one round of combat costs 4/10s of an Economic Point. The maximum number of bombardment factors that can participate in a round of combat in a given battle hex is 12 at a cost of 1.2 economic points per round of combat. Each use of a drone bombardment point costs 1/1,000th of the Kzinti pre-war economy.

In any case, a DF+(Y175) has 100 points of cargo storage for its drones (50 type-IIIXX drones), plus 36 spaces in its racks (another 18 type-IIIXX drones) plus two reloads for its racks (another 72 spaces, or 36 type-IIIXX drones) for a total of 104 type-IIIXX drones, or 208 total drone spaces.

If you took a Kzinti Drone PF (PFD), replaced the phaser-1 with another drone rack, used another PFD in placed of the PFS, the result would 24 type-B drone racks with a capacity of 72 type-IIIXX drones.

The Six PFDs would have an economic cost of 120 BPV (assuming a standard PFD used in place of a leader PFD), increasing to 150 BPV if they had the shield refit (costs of drones is ignored for this). A fuly refitted DF has a BPV of 81 (again, drone costs are ignored), meaning that the PFD bombardment flotilla comes in at almost double the cost of a bombardment Frigate, with only 7/10s of the drone throw weight (bearing in mind that we have already replaced the phaser-1s to get to that throw weight). The only advantage is that the PFs require three fewer on board crew units compared to the DF (18 for the PFs versus 21 for the DF).

Now, we are done here.

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Thursday, January 04, 2007 - 03:16 pm: Edit

Dlampert - Been there, done that. The Klingons have the D6DP in module R9. And the Federation got the VDB drone bombardment carrier.

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Thursday, January 04, 2007 - 03:22 pm: Edit

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Quote:

The maximum number of bombardment factors that can participate in a round of combat in a given battle hex is 12 at a cost of 1.2 economic points per round of combat.

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By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Thursday, January 04, 2007 - 04:05 pm: Edit

Don't poke the Bear John, Don't poke the Bear!



Seriously, SPP wasn't in Advanced Ops development and hasn't memorized it like some of us F+E geeks.