Freight Snipe (Snipe-F)
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
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R04: ROMULAN PROPOSALS:
Freight Snipe (Snipe-F)
These are the smaller companions to the Freight Eagles. Before warp drive, the Freight Warbirds (YR4.9) were supported by the the Sublight Freighters (YR4.11) in moving the Cargo Sled Pallets (R4.30A). The Freight Warbirds were then converted to Freight Eagles (R4.30), but the smaller sublight freighters were not due to their small size. Instead some Snipe Frigates (R4.42) were converted/built to fill the supporting role.
This is supported by text in (R4.133):
The Romulans, like other empires, found themselves in need a small transport able to move pods. This task was being handled by a Snipe variant that was able to move Freight Eagle pallets (R4.30A), but the Romulans had initially assumed that there would be no need to move other “pods.”
For the record, I am totally down with a Snipe-T/Snipe-F and would definitely love to see it included somewhere.
Looking at the minis, the Snipe's nacelles will be outboard of the pallet; I don't know why that seems important to me. Where are the attachment points? The landing legs? The pallet could have extras to receive the Snipe's forward pair with the aft being common with the Warbird's. If a sublight freighter is a pair of non-military non-tactical warp engines and a control pod, they could follow the locations on the Snipe-T.
A Romulan Sublight Freighter as found in Module Y2 is a combined command/power module in one package. It otherwise follows the outlines of other Romulan ships, i.e., it has wings and on the ends of the wings are the impulse drives. It is otherwise a bridge (control room), an emergency bridge (back up control room), two shuttles, two hull boxes (habitation) and a battery.
Well a Snipe cargo ship would be not much use at all. Except as a target that would blow up very easy. I would prefer a Snipe with a Special Sensor replacing the G torp. It would be a very cheap scout that would give me a +1 on my Weapon status role. Not much use except for a small squadron in the EW department and very limited then as well but still useful.
As a combat unit, no, a Snipe-T isn't worth anything. But, quite frankly, the Snipe-A isn't worth much of anything, either.
As a strategic unit, yes, a Snipe-T can be quite useful. There just aren't a whole lot of ships that can carry around a Romulan cargo pallet, and having an extra cheap unit that can do that is helpful. Ripping out the plasma and one or two batteries would give enough room for 3-4 internal cargo, which is half of what a Freight Eagle has.
The biggest weakness of a Snipe-T is that it needs the cargo pallet to be useful, and that would give it a movement rate of 1/4 + 1/3, which is 7/12. Assuming we just round off to 1/2, that is a very slow ship. Strategically, it is not that different from other theatre transport ships. But tactically, it is definitely an easy target.
But, just being a super-cheap means of conveying Romulan cargo pallets around makes it an inherently useful ship.
From Advanced Missions: "(R4.30) FREIGHT EAGLE (FE): The construction of large numbers of warships put a strain on the Romulan economy and shipyard capacity that did not allow a formal fleet tug design to enter production. The solution was to use surplus War Eagles and Warbirds as cargo carriers."
MY take on that...
War Eagles and Warbirds provided vital heavy torpedo support (Plasma-"Raunchies") for the Romulan fleet. Despite that critical need (Dreadnaughts and a small number of NCA type ships carry the massive Plasma-R torpedoes), the Romulans still found it more beneficial to convert War Eagles to the freight model.
That being the case, even with their potential vulnerability (not that FE class ships are all that tough), I think this conversion is something the Romulans would have, at the VERY least, given serious consideration to.
Also, the Snipe class ship was considered too obsolete and vulnerable for frontline use. If the Romulans are already scrambling for freight haulers, (Sparrowhawk H, anyone?), SOME Great House would undoubtedly pressure the Senate into using this proposal.
The only real problem I see with this design, though, is how little cargo it would actually be able to haul. This has already been brought up, as has the questionable ability of this ship to haul the Cargo Pallet (R4.30A). If these are not regarded as unsurmountable problems, then IMO, this is a good proposal.
(... For my 0.002 Quatloos worth... 
)
The Snipe-T should take over the sub-light freighters job when warp drives become available and use the same containers, maybe 2 at a time since the Snipes are quite a bit larger.
Well, let's not go overboard. Any Snipe-T is going to be limited to a single cargo pallet. Two big reasons:
1) The Freight Eagle only gets to carry one. I doubt something less than half the size is going to carry more.
2) Two pallets would give the Snipe-T a movement rate of 11/12, which I assume would round to 1. That's very slow; probably too slow.
CC:
I am not convinced the Snipe-T is bigger than a sublight freighter.
In any case I think the Romulans would be better off building warp freighters and upgrading the sublight ones instead of converting warp-capable warships into freighters. The Romulans did have to make some freight eagles to serve in groups of 3 as (bad and inefficient) tugs because they had no other option for a while to fill the tug function to supplement the KRTs and fill the gap until their new Sparrowhawk tugs get built but the Snipe is probably too small to perform any tug functions even if you put a lot of them in a group.
One factor not brought up (yet), is that according to GURPS Romulans, the Romulan Empire is located in a region of the Alpha Octant that has fewer habitable planets.
Given the Romulans transport / logistical requirements, it is not a reach to assume that they need as many transports as they can beg, borrow or steal. (Alternative observation, that the distance between planets in the Romulan Empire, is greater than other empires.)
It is possible that the Romulans Empire use of slower transports (such as the Snipe T) means they have to substitute MORE Snipe Ts to compensate for the slower transports.
Separate point: logically, the needs of serving as many planets and bases as possible would mean the Snipe Ts should operate as single units. From a security point of view, the Snipe Ts may be safer if operated in groups of 3. From an economic POV, operating the Snipe Ts in groups 3 would triple the cost of transports.
Just not sure what this adds to the game, unless a armed Snipe is regularly assigned to the transport group. That might make it more interesting... especially if the armed Snipe could haul a pod. Make it like a poor mans version of a qship.
Charles Chapel:
Snipe-Ts will not take over the role of sublight freighters. Warp powered freighters will take over that role.
A Snipe hull is, however small and largely inadequate in many ways, a warship and far too expensive to assume the role of merchant ship on a continuing basis. That is just one of the reasons FFTs, DWTs, and other strategic transports do not supplant freighters in other empires.
Plus, if we allowed Snipes to replace all Romulan freighters, we would provide your name as the instigator of this change to the Orion Cartel Lords, who will probably send Crime Teams to discuss payment for the damages caused to their ships by all the Nuclear Space Mines a convoy of Snipe-Ts would be laying, in addition to the T-bombs.
Warships, remember.
So, no, Snipes are not going to replace sublight freighters. The Romulans convert to using the same freighters as basically everyone else. A Snipe-T would be the Romulan version of a strategic transport as used by other empires, to move cargoes too important to be entrusted to simple merchantmen.
Clarification:
If the Romulans use Snipe Ts as strategic transports, would it be at the cost of slower speeds than other Empires strategic Transports?
Given the size of the Romulan Empire, having a strategic transport with an estimated (see post above) operational movement of (11/12 SFB movement cost) rounded up to f&E per turn speed of 1 hex per turn, (slower than regulation freighters) gains the Romulans very little.
I will have to look at f&e rules again, but since the movement cost is effectively sublight speed, can a Snipe T use strategic movement?
Jeff Wile:
Not really, as it would be moving Romulan pallets rather than cargo pods. And there are a lot of those pallets in the Romulan Empire since they have been building them at least since the Y50s, and are the basis for their fleet of sublight freighters that are in use at least into the Y160s.
It seems to me that a Snipe as a theater transport is VERY small for the role. Snipe's a frigate, and small frigate at that. It's like making a theater transport out of a police ship hull. I am skeptical that something this small could be made to work.
The proposal was entirely based on what appears on the official text of rule (R4.133) in the Romulan MSSB, as quoted in the first message of this topic. It wouldn't be quite a theater transport as it couldn't do anything but move pallets. But it would have a tractor beam and a transporter which would allow it to service locations where pallets can't be landed.
There does seem to be an awful lot of quibbling over a ship that is officially stated to exist.
I think THAT's what we all enjoy about these discussion boards.
Pretty sure the strategic speed of the refitted Romulans is the same as any other warship despite the early versions not being able to make Speed 31.
I doubt you would gut a Snipe to shove in a few cargo boxes. If you need them to carry a pallet couldn't you just shove a plug in the back to carry it and increase the movement cost when carrying the pallet and call it done? They operate only for priority goods and to support the more ubiquitous Freight Eagles. Once the more capable tugs (KRTs and the Sparrowhawks) take over they were turned back over to the military or given to the police. Playing F&E I can say I wish I could convert the triple FE Rom tug counters into a trio of War Eagles too.
The Romulans would not need a bunch of new freighters. Their sublight freighters are still around and can keep the economy humming along just fine even if the conversion to tactical warp freighters is slow. They would need more to expand and that shortage actually could explain why it took the Romulans until Y173 to start occupying their backwater regions. Or maybe the Romulans really should have bought some Klingon survey hulls. Or, knowing the Roms, the expansion was delayed because the Great Houses could not decide who would be unofficially "in charge" of the new regions.
Ah, arguing about what it looks like is definitely fair game! :D
Eh, Petrick gets to decide what it looks like whenever it is time to publish it (if ever).
For me, I assume it would follow the model of the Freight Eagle. So, replace the Pl-G with a single Ph-1 FX, replace each of the pre-existing phasers with cargo. Move things around a bit and you should be able to get four boxes in there. That's about right for such a small ship. Plus the ability to carry a single cargo pallet.
Again, again, this isn't a freighter. It is a military transport ship.
BTW, this also indirectly opens the idea of a Freighthawk. Take a Chickenhawk or Warhawk, discard the gunboats/fighters, add in six cargo and the ability to carry a cargo pallet. That would likely be the "real" theatre transport for the Eagle-series Romulans. (Why do I refer to the Chickenhawk and Warhawk instead of the Battle Hawk? Because the internals are different enough to the advantage of the new ship. Plus it could be argued that technically the Chickenhawk and Warhawk are variants of the Freighthawk.)
I am okay with whatever Steve P agrees to.
A Freighthawk, and, as news of PFTs spreads across the octant, "A ship that has to give up armament to carry them? We already have that ship!"
Somehow it loses the ability to carry a pallet.
Quote:Somehow it loses the ability to carry a pallet.
Gotta stick those gunboat links somewhere ...
I assumed chickenhawks were just all the leftover warhawks.
"Welp, we gutted out all the weapons for a shuttle bay to make a garbage carrier so bad even two of them together are not a real carrier. We should rip out the hanger and put in mech links so we can have half of a PF tender."
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