Topic: Military Construction

[markc]

 I was reading the news story of the USA's mine sweeper that id being chopped up do to grounding on a reef and was struck by a statement they said, military construction.
 After reading that and doing some thinking the following questions bubbled up.
1) If your view what is military construction and how would it be different than civilian construction?
2) How would you simulate this using the SM:P or SM2 rule set (Please specify which rule set you are commenting on as they are slightly different in a number of areas.)?
3) Or do you think that the difference between civilian and military construction does not need to be represented in the rules?


MDC

[NanoEther]

The majority of US equipment is built by the lowest bidder. But, the equipment must meet or exceed a set of standards. Failure to meet the standards on one item can result in the company loosing all of its military contracts, having them awarded to competitors.

As an example, colt manufactures the m-16/m-4. When the military started looking at a replacement weapon that had a sealed gas return system (prevents fowling from gunpowder residue, reducing failure rate), Colt responded that they could do that too. Basically, their defense was that it wasn't in the standards for the weapon to have that system, if the army wanted to add it to the standard colt could still supply weapons.

Ships do not normally fit into this category. Sometimes a competition is held where competing shipyards submit designs for a new ship. Once a ship design is accepted for use, the yard that designed the ship builds the ships based on that design.

Even though the yard designs and builds the ship, it often buys components from other manufacturers. Installed equipment, and this includes weapon systems, are purchased from other sources.

I can certainly see Features and Flaws related to the procurement process, but a few of them already exist in the Vehicle manual. Quite a few of the features could be specified by a military (spacious being the exception). Many of the flaws could be seen on a ship that was first of it's class (a new ship design), some of those would be corrected on the lead ship, and there would be redesign to try to remove them all. Some that would be considered designed flaws (they were used intentionally rather then accidentally) are: Cramped Cockpit, Exposed Weapons (may only apply to certain systems), and Planned Obsolescence. There's a few others that could be designed flaws.

If a government has control over what a military acquires, individuals in the government often seek some advantage. This could result in a number of flaws. That's not to say that when the military has a free hand that it does so effectively. One of the contributing factors to Germany's fall during WWII was that different generals had their troops outfitted with weapons & equipment that competed with and was incompatible with the equipment of other generals troops.

Bureaucratic Wrangling: at least one component or system must be manufactured by a company that produces an inferior but more expensive version. Choose a system & multiply cost by 2.
Quirk: the system still meets standards;
Minor: system barely meets standards;
Major: when under stress, the system may fail;
Greater: the system has a hidden flaw that could threaten the ships survival. Revelation of the flaw could threaten lawmakers, military leaders, and company, which may result in a cover-up (witness' would be troublesome, but accidents happen in space all the time)

[GrumpyOldFart]

1) If your view what is military construction and how would it be different than civilian construction?

There's an old joke that explains it very well:

Q. What is a rhinoceros?
A. A lapdog built to MILSPEC.

[JimiSue]

For me, it's a change in the role of the ship and the knock-on effect to construction methods (and costs).

A civilian vessel is generally smaller, with relatively high performance capabilities (thinking personal craft here - larger ones are really commercial craft, see below). The hull is likely to be super-light, with high-performance engines, a high spec interior and few, if any redundant systems.

The main concerns of a commercial vessel is almost certainly going to be the efficient movement of large amounts of cargo (people or things) from one place to another. This is almost certainly going to be done on relatively well-established routes, and since capital outlay is significant, quite probably by large companies. This means that in the case of breakdown, repairs can be done by an external team that travels to where it is needed. The ship therefore will be built with a light hull, large engines capable of sustained output rather than high performance, and a minimal amout of redundant systems.

A military vessel has other concerns. It needs to be relatively serlf-sustaining in hostile environments, possibly far from support. This translates to a substantial hull, engines which need to be powerful over sustained periods of time and also high performance while in combat, redundant and back up systems in case of damage.

A scientific vessel  is likely to be built along the lines of a commercial vessel, but with specific areas where it is stronger even than a mil-spec vessel. An specialist surveyor may have sensor equipment stronger than a military vessel. One designed for working in and around asteroid fields might have a stronger hull, and so on.

The easiest way to similate these strengths I think is probably to offer bonuses to the relevant area. I would be reluctant to mess around with the AT, but a stronger hull might give a DB bonus, and a lot of other systems are covered (at least in SM2, not sure about SMP) simply by giving specific systems a higher rating. So I can see where you're coming from, but I'm not sure there needs to be specific rules concerning them, because I think it's already covered

[NanoEther]

Redundancy is handled by step 42. Select Auxiliary Systems. Civilian craft will often have the features Plush and Spacious.

Select Sensors could stand some more options though, specifically to emulate scientific and survey vessels. These should have larger arrays, giving a better range & bonus. It will also offer reduced arrays for civilian craft.

Yes, Ideas from here will hit the construction thread when I get to the section.

[jdale]

To some extent that depends on the use. A civilian car is light construction with minimal redundant systems (you get... one sub-par tire), but that's because if there is a major failure help is available. But if you're driving around sub-Saharan Africa in the 60's, you'll get a Land Rover and not a Chrysler. You can address that as design choices or you could define a Land Rover as "scientific" instead of "civilian."

When it comes to spacecraft, whether a commercial craft has redundant systems depends largely, I think, on how difficult it will be for repair craft to reach it. If the cost of reaching it is substantial, it makes more sense to have repair capabilities on board (at least good enough to limp home with and keep the life support running). Especially if even finding the craft will be difficult (e.g. no FTL communication). If finding it is trivial and not too expensive, you might want redundancy in the life support and communications but otherwise it's not so important.

The advantage of handling redundant systems individually is that you can make those situations based on the specific usage of the vehicle. Secondary systems can also be built sub-par if appropriate. The advantage of just having multipliers for "military" and "scientific" is streamlining the system (e.g. military life support may cost and weigh 2x but this assumes a fully redundant system that will keep going after major life support damage).

[NanoEther]

Depending on the vehicle, this should be handled with the Axillary System step. Some of the Movement options might list any redundancies or options for redundancies.

At any rate, the way that redundant systems are handled must be spelled out to the designers, otherwise they are unaware what they putting into the vessel. Do the wheeled vehicles designed come with a spare tire? Four of them? We don't know and assume not because whether or not they do wasn't shared in the manual.

Doesn't necessarily make it a bad system, just one that is difficult to understand.

[markc]

 I know in SM2 they tend to list some spares as cost in parts or CIP.
MDC

[VladD]

For me MILSPEC comes down to what has been said above, but combined.

So military construction makes Berths smaller, redundency more prevalent and every available cumet is filled with something useful, humans being a necessary evil. (Think military vessels of our days)
Military construction allows for the newest, sleekest, most powerful weapons available. Military designs are usually based on some innovation requiring new vehicles. (drones and energy weapons as current examples)
Military designs make use of the newest materials and producers get prevalence in delivery of these materials. Mostly such materials are under control and unavailable to private persons. (No cobham armor for your SUV)
The designers of MILSPEC usually are handpicked and the best of their class, allowing for lots of new ideas and secrecy and perhaps advances unavailable to normal people. (Radar equipment and targetting devices are not available in military grade at radioshack )

I am of course not taking in account such follies as the Bradley development

[JimiSue]

Do the wheeled vehicles designed come with a spare tire? Four of them? We don't know and assume not because whether or not they do wasn't shared in the manual.

Assuming they are regular pneumatyic tyres (hows we spell it over here in the sunny UK ). If it's armoured they I would syspect that the tyres or puncture-resistant at the very least, possibly solid.. so anything that can take out the tyre would probably also take out the mount as well - which means you have bigger issues than just the spare.

We are also starting to see a 'best of both' in cars, with hybrid designs that effectively have two engines, either of which is capable of running the vehicle (less efficiently and at lower power and with less range than in tandem, but these things come with time .

I did have a player come at me for a design for a ship where he never wanted to deal with having the wires between control and system damaged and had the ship designed and built with a lattice, each system taken power and instruction at its own frequency, much like the way a voice phone signal is carried on the same wire as a modem signal. I don't know if that's possible, but hey it sounded good, turned out to be expensive and this is 10 thousand years in the future anyway (SM2 anyway, not sure about SMP) so some leaps of faith have to be made.

My rule of thumb is if it sounds cool, can be explained with enough logic that it might turn out to be possible with advances in knowledge and tech, then I'll allow it. Players do have good ideas from time to time.

[NanoEther]

Problem is that someone with a faulty personal communicator could step on his frequencies, causing intermittent failures or unintended inputs.

It would also be very susceptible to Electronic Warfare, when the frequencies get jammed, resulting in the above.

RL example, RC plane pilots set their aircraft down, disconnect the engine (if it's electric, don't start it if it's fueled), turn on the receiver, and observe the servos for ten or more minutes. this is to ensure that a competing signal does not dive their $100+ AC into the ground. It's also why most RC AC fields are in undeveloped areas.

And yes, it is possible to jam blue tooth, cell phones, and even drones.

For a civilian ship, not a problem, but anybody that operates in pirate prone areas are going to have a wired backup system.

If they're military craft, it gets a bit iffy. I can see a government getting starry eyed at the "reduced" maintenance costs and requiring their ships to convert only to find out later that it takes more training to maintain the systems, wiping out the savings. EM: 12 weeks, 210 ASVAB, no clearance; ET: 30 weeks +advanced training , 222 ASVAB, secret clearance required.

[GrumpyOldFart]

The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.

[KacyCrawford]

Thanks for sharing