Torch class System Defense Boat

Torch class System Defense Boat
When An Interceptor Gets Big
Type: HSVL System Defense Boat
Category	ACS
Size	200 Tons
Hull Configuration	Wedge Hull
Streamlining	Airframe Hull
Tech Level	TL–15
Engineering
Computer	Model/9
Jump	J-0
Maneuver	20 G
Armaments
Hardpoints	2
Accommodations
Staterooms	0
Personnel
Crew	5
Officers	1
Enlisted	4
High/Mid Passengers	0
Payload
Cargo	0.2 Tons
Fuel tank	0 Tons
Construction
Origin	Third Imperium
Manufacturer	various
Year Operational	1049
End of Service	Examples still operate post-Collapse
Price
Cost	MCr190.79. MCr171.711 in quantity.
Architect fee	MCrAdrian Tymes
Statistics
Quick Ship Profile	HSB-BAJ0
Images
Blueprint	Yes
Illustration	No
Source
Also see	Interceptor - Bay
Canon	Published, fan design
Era	Third Imperium
Reference	EXTERNAL LINK: MGT Forums
Designed with Mongoose Traveller High Guard rules, but portable to other versions.

The Torch class System Defense Boat is a fast, armed spaceship.

It is a paramilitary ship and a System Defense Boat.
It is sometimes used as a Battle Rider.

Description (Specifications)

The Torch class of system defense boats is a series of apparent paradoxes, starting with its name.

There are old Solomani tales of a "torchship", which uses something like maneuver drive to accelerate to appreciable fractions of the speed of light. Almost any ship with a maneuver drive is theoretically capable of this (...though most require the presence of a big enough star to provide a wide enough area to accelerate over). While the Torch class is capable of much greater acceleration than most ships, it derives its name from a simpler metaphor: a ship of fire and light.

Likewise, a Torch is too big to be classed as a fighter even if that is how it is designed to be used (with multiple canard wings to give superiority in atmospheric combat, whether invading or defending an atmosphere), and too small to be properly termed a battle rider even if it often fills that role. It at least fulfills the definition of a system defense boat: an armed spaceship of at least 100 displacement tons without a jump drive. Just one Torch can defend a highport or a small world against casual pirates, though it has no staterooms and thus can only stay deployed for 24 hours at a time; best practice is no more than 6.

Nomenclature aside, a Torch is a spaceship large enough to carry a weapon bay, that dogfights. This doctrine does not always work, but when it does it can be devastatingly effective, packs of Torches hounding entire fleets until their quarry is destroyed without suffering a single shot landed in return. Speed is a Torch's primary defense, though it also carries significant armor (...by spaceship standards) to help it survive the attack run, and to shrug off most attacks from smaller opposing vehicles, spaceships or otherwise. The short range of its primary weapon makes it ill suited to a typical "stand back and attack" doctrine.

Among the known countermeasures are uninvolved ships picking off the Torches (...best handled by having enough Torches to dogfight and harass every ship in the enemy fleet, preventing all but the most disciplined crews from tending to each others' troubles), deploying true fighters (smallcraft which can out-dogfight a Torch) with heavy enough weapons to pierce the armor, firing missiles to take out the jump-capable carrier the Torches rode in on (...which usually hangs well back from the fight), and firing large enough missile salvos at a Torch to overcome its point defense (...attacking every Torch in a squadron at once, lest they help each other against one-at-a-time salvos). Torches carry a laser turret as a secondary weapon to deal with fighters and missiles.

Image Repository

Not available at this time.

General Description & Deck Plans

Deck Plans for this vessel.

Basic Ship Characteristics

Following the Imperial Navy and IISS Universal Ship Profile and data, additional information is presented in the format shown here. ^[1]

Basic Ship Characteristics ^[2]
No.	Category	Remarks
1.	Tonnage / Hull	Tonnage: 200 tons (standard). 2800 cubic meters. Airframe Wedge Hull. Dimensions: maximum 54 meters long by 30 meters wide by 4 meters tall.
2.	Crew	Crew: 1 Pilot, 2 Engineers, 2 Gunners. The pilot is typically the captain.
3.	Performance	Acceleration: 7-G maneuver drive and 13-G reaction drive installed, for a total of 20-G. No jump drive.
4.	Electronics	Model/9 ship computer.
5.	Hardpoints	2 hardpoints.
6.	Armament	One fusion gun weapon bay.
7.	Defenses	One triple-mount beam laser turret.
8.	Craft	None. Vacc suits required for EVA (extra-vehicle activity). Rescue Balls for crew escape normally carried.
9.	Fuel Treatment	It is not equipped with a fuel purification plant, though it does have fuel scoops.
10.	Cost	MCr190.79 standard (no architect's fees, the naval architects having donated their labor). MCr171.711 in quantity.
11.	Construction Time	6.5 months standard, 4.5 in quantity.
12.	Remarks	One of the fastest non-smallcraft spaceships in Charted Space, designed to intercept and destroy capital ships.

History & Background (Dossier)

This class of ships was designed by Vargr naval architects working for the Third Imperium in Deneb Sector. They claim this is an evolution of designs found in the Vargr Extents. The teeth-like canards and the bridge arrangement (see Ship Interior Details below) lend credence to this claim. Similar designs have been spotted in shipyards of higher tech Vargr, Aslan, Zhodani, and even Droyne worlds, though it is surprisingly rare in the Solomani Sphere. Hivers view this design as too direct for their tastes, and K'kree prefer automated drones for ships of this sort.

This particular class was developed toward the end of the Second Survey, in response to certain diplomatic problems incurred while surveying the Vargr Extents, to protect against potential Vargr reprisals with "a Vargr ship". In order to encourage use, its designers donated their labor "to the Vargr of the Third Imperium", though even without architects' fee it was not manufactured in particularly large batches, largely because it was marketed as an anti-capital ship defense and to Vargr officers in Third Imperium planetary navies (not the largest of markets). It saw modest success as a battle rider in the Fourth Frontier War, but the results of the war saw the Third Imperium veer away from battle riders in general. Later, in the Fifth Frontier War, Torch squadrons saw much greater success in the system defense boat role.

Class Naming Practice/s & Peculiarities

Ship Interior Details (Peculiarities):

The bridge is laid out with gunners on the outside so they can directly adjust the main gun's potentials, then engineers, and the pilot in the center. The pilot is the designated captain due to having the most prominent chair - which, should the pilot fail to protect the ship, is also the seat furthest from the airlocks.
Like most fighters, there is little crew-accessible space within the ship. Most repairs and maintenance must be conducted from outside, preferably while the Torch is docked or landed.
Although the main fusion gun is mostly aimed by pointing the ship, fine aiming is achieved via magnetic deflectors packed around the triple beam generators. Adjusting these deflectors is the main activity of the gunner crewing the fusion gun. This weapon takes up the entire forward third (by volume) of the ship, using TL-15 to miniaturize the weapon to make the Torch design feasible. Some say the Torch was designed around this gun - that the miniaturized gun was developed first, and the Torch mostly just a platform to give the gun some mobility.

Class Naming Practice/s:

Torch names are usually dictated by the planetary government that commissions their construction, resulting in squadrons having a consistent naming pattern within themselves but incoherency of names between systems. That said, the official recommendation is to name them after light or fire sources, resulting in one incident during the Fourth Frontier War where two squadrons of 4 attached to two different battle tenders arriving at a rendezvous point were both named Explosion 1 through Explosion 4. One of them renamed itself by colors, becoming Explosion Red, Green, Blue, and Black. Both squadrons were lost in battle a week later. After the Fourth Frontier War, further use of the name Explosion for Torch class ships was officially discouraged.

Selected Variant Types & Classes

Paramilitary Vessel - Defensive Vessel - System Defense Boat:
Type HSB class System Defense Boat AKA Type SB class System Defense Boat

Type HSVL class Very Light System Defense Boat

References & Contributors (Sources)

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Citation Missing - High Guard (Design Sequence Used)
EXTERNAL LINK: An Alphabet of Ships
Traveller Wiki Editorial Team
Author & Contributor: Adrian Tymes
Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science

↑ Timothy B. Brown. Fighting Ships (Game Designers Workshop, 1981), 10.
↑ Timothy B. Brown. Fighting Ships (Game Designers Workshop, 1981), 10.

[1] Timothy B. Brown. Fighting Ships (Game Designers Workshop, 1981), 10.

[2] Timothy B. Brown. Fighting Ships (Game Designers Workshop, 1981), 10.

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