Battleship Attack: Squadron and Border boxes

[Steve Cole]

We had a Seltorian delay (not the first one). We got the eight ships, but one of them has to go back for fixes. Given transportation time (4-6 days) and fixing time (1-4 days) we don't expect this to delay the seltorians more than a week.

It should only delay the battleships by 1-4 days, the time actually fixing the Seltorian CA's engines.

[junior]

djdood - It was never published, though, so I'm off the hook.



I'd actually heard of it, though I hadn't seen it. But as I said, it was never published. And it's not in Battleships Attack.


John - Thanks for the corrections. I've never really had opponents who were interested in playing either the Lyrans or the Kzinti, so I'm usually not as familiar with them. I assumed the Kzinti had followed the pattern of the Feds and Klingons. But now that I think about it, all Kzinti ships have three engines. So what you put up makes sense. As for the Lyrans, I could have sworn that I'd read that they added another hull section. But apparently I misremembered.



And as a follow-up to my B-10 comments...

As I mentioned, in SFB the B-10 was the only battleship ever completed. Four hulls were planned and started (with a hypothetical fifth hull that would have been sent to the Romulans but was never begun). The first, the B-10 Invincible, was completed as a standard B-10. The second was converted during construction to a carrier design, and then to a space control ship design (i.e. it carried a mix of fighters and gunboats (PFs)). The third was used as a complete hull, but with incomplete systems, to defend the capital against an attack. I believe the hull survived the battle, but was so badly damaged that work was never continued. The fourth was destroyed when its boom (and ONLY its boom!) was used to defend the capital against yet another attack, and was lost during the fighting. The Klingons planned to build four battleships using an improved design, the B-11, but work was never started on them.

Battleships were expensive, difficult to build, and took much longer to construct than their points value would suggest (the Invincible took over a decade to build). As a result, the Klingons, who were badly strapped for cash as a result of the General War, ISC Pacification, and the Andromedan Invasion, were forced to devote funds to the construction of other smaller ships until the Post-War treaty banned all large hulls (including dreadnoughts - the existing ones were placed in stasis "just in case"). No other nation completed a battleship, although there is evidence that at least some of them started work on them. The Kzinti were the only other race to produce a ship larger than a dreadnought - their Super Space Control Ship (which carried fighters, and even more gunboats (PFs)).


Of course, none of the above should be allowed to interfere with your own personal games and campaigns.

[Steve Cole]

"the Post-War treaty banned all large hulls (including dreadnoughts - the existing ones were placed in stasis "just in case")."

History, for better or worse, didn't turn out this way, and the large hulls continued to serve through the end of Operation Unity and beyond.

[junior]

"the Post-War treaty banned all large hulls (including dreadnoughts - the existing ones were placed in stasis "just in case")."

History, for better or worse, didn't turn out this way, and the large hulls continued to serve through the end of Operation Unity and beyond.

By "Post-War", I meant after the Andro War (which, of course, included Unity). But if you say that they served beyond that time, then obviously even that is incorrect. I remember that there was a scenario in R5 that covered an in-universe writer's wild, fanciful interpretation of a mock battlepass by a Fed Dreadnought and a Klingon Dreadnought while the two ships were on their way to Organia to be locked in stasis. Did I merely get the time frame wrong? Or has the stasis been completely removed from SFB history?

[terryoc]

"Post-War" means post-General War. They were intended to be in stasis around Organia, after the Organians brokered a peace to the General War. It was hoped that there would then be a period of peace and prosperity and all that stuff. Unfortunately, the Andromedans then started their invasion in earnest, and the Dreadnoughts and BBs had to be remobilized to fight them, serving up until the end of Operation Unity (which finally finished off the Andros). The scenario featuring a Federation and Klingon DN fighting each other in mock combat is set after the General War but before the Andromedan Invasion.

[Steve Cole]

Actually, the whole idea that the battleships and dreadnoughts were (or were going to be) put into storage under some treaty is pretty much a myth.

[junior]

Hmm...

I would imagine, then, that the difficulty in building the things is what primarily kept anymore from being built following the end of the Operation Unity. I'm sure that the Klingons were glad to have both of theirs' once they'd actually finished the things. But they could have built an awful lot of D-7s for the same price, and probably finished them a lot faster, as well.

Of course, as already noted, this is all SFB history, and FedCom history is a lot looser. And the text descriptions of each battleship are pretty clear in stating that every major race built at least a few battleships (except for maybe the Hydrans).

[Sneaky Scot]

So if the Battleships and Dreadnoughts didn't disappear into stasis after the Op UNITY, how long do we have to wait to see the B-10X?

Reporting to the booth now......