An earlier version of Traveller5 came with a standalone file titled “Starship Recognition Guides,” which had color illustrations of various starships. While most of these ships are familiar from past editions, one of the most striking illustrations, shown at right, is not. Done by Jesse DeGraff, I couldn’t find any description of a “Raptor-class frigate” in past Traveller works. While there is a 20-ton Raptor-class combat lander in Assignment Vigilante (1992), it’s pretty clearly a different vessel altogether.
While most of the text from the Recognition Guides made it into the latest version of Traveller5, many illustrations did not, including the one depicting the Raptors. But we can deduce several basic design parameters from just the limited information provided, which includes a Quick Ship Profile. These Raptors are 2,000 tons, with a braced hull, 5g acceleration, and no jump capability. It looks like the tender has berths for eight Raptors, which is the typical upper size of an Imperial squadron.
What does the GBS code tell us? Interpreting Traveller5 mission codes can be something of a dark art. The “G” mission here almost certainly signifies a Frigate, which is a major type of offensive fighting ship in both weapons and defenses, though notably “less than a cruiser.” The B and S modifiers probably indicate “Boat” and “System,” akin to SDB. So this is an offensive, non-jump capable vessel.
I’m not aware of a published Traveller design that’s very similar to the Raptor, but such a vessel could be useful in a frontier region like Magyar sector, which has to contend with numerous smaller-scale conflicts.
For that matter, we don’t have many examples of larger battle rider and battle tender designs, even though they are certainly mentioned enough in canon. For example, the CT Fighting Ships supplement (1981) gives us a tantalizing glimpse of “the million-ton fleet tender Gorodish [which] carried the Empress Troyhune to Rorise in place of one of its Hadrian class battleriders.” (Based on context, a single Hadrian is probably 50,000 tons.)
The designs in MT supplement Fighting Ships of the Shattered Imperium (1990) have been decanonized and in any case are much, much larger (700,000+ ton tenders) than what we’re looking for. The TNE boardgame Battle Riders (1984) has some light battle rider counters, but again these are probably much larger than what we’re looking for.
I was able to glean some basic rider/tender design principles from both the (also decanonized) Trillion Credit Squadron (1981) and MgT Sector Fleet (2009). From there I had enough to break out MgT2 High Guard. Since much remains unknown about the elusive Raptor frigate, rather than call my resulting design a conversion I’ll simply call this one “inspired by” the T5 illustration.
Falke-class Patrol Boat and Tender
Magyar is a poor, technologically backward, frontier sector. Conflict there tends to be smaller in scale but no less pernicious, ranging from piracy to inter-system brush wars to occasional cross-border raids. Such conflicts are occasionally more than a local system could address by itself, but not significant enough to warrant deployment of even a few precious cruisers. These conflicts also tend to be fluid and fast-moving: pirates rarely strike in the same system twice, staying on the move. To address this gap, in 1079 the Imperial Navy issued specifications for a new patrol boat and tender combination to assist in securing this frontier region.
The winning design, awarded in 1081, was submitted by Allied Prefabricated Ships and Vessels and based on an existing design used in the Spinward Marches—but less expensive and built to TL14 standards. Eight tender-and-rider packages have been ordered and five have been built. All are currently in service with subsector fleets on the Daibei and Magyar frontiers.
The concept harkens back to before the formation of the Third Imperium, and the gunboat tenders used by the old Sylean Federation. The idea is similar to contemporary battle rider/battle tender doctrine but on a much smaller scale. The initial Sylean designs were simply converted cruisers carrying a force of large gunboats. The winning APS&V design consisted of the 14,000 ton Horst-class patrol tender, capable of jump 3 and carrying 8 Falke-class patrol boats, which are 2,000 ton attack craft protected with heavy armor and armed with a main meson accelerator gun.
Although not particularly popular with the admirals, the Falke/Horst combination has demonstrated its versatility on the Magyar frontier, allowing the Navy to rapidly bolster small, poor worlds lacking suitable system defense forces or to shuffle anti-piracy vessels around threatened systems. In Magyar, these vessels have been assigned to patrol flotillas, which often consist of a single Horst and its Falke riders along with a dromedary ship or two.
Falke-class Patrol Boat
Falke-class Patrol Boats are designed to operate singly or in packs in frontier areas. They are equipped with fuel processors and large capacity tanks in case they need to refuel their tender.
Hull Points 880
Crew Captain, Officer x4, Pilot x3, Engineer x6, Maintenance x4, Gunner x34, Administrator x2, Medic
Maintenance Cost MCr0.120 per month
Purchase Cost MCr1,445
| TL14 | Tons | Costs (MCr) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hull | 2,000 tons, Streamlined | - | 120 |
| Reinforced | - | 60 | |
| Armor | Bonded Superdense, Armor:14 | 224 | 202 |
| Radiation Shielding | - | 50 | |
| M-Drive | Thrust 5 | 100 | 200 |
| Power Plant | Fusion (TL12), Power 1,850 | 123 | 123 |
| Fuel Tanks | 30 weeks operation | 100 | - |
| Bridge | 40 | 10 | |
| Computer | Computer 30/fib | - | 30 |
| Sensors | Improved | 3 | 4 |
| Countermeasures Suite | 2 | 4 | |
| Enhanced Signal Processing | 2 | 8 | |
| Weapons | Main - meson | 1,000 | 500 |
| Medium Bay (particle beam) x2 | 200 | 80 | |
| Triple Turret (beam laser/missile/sandcaster) x8 | 8 | 20 | |
| Ammunition | Missile Storage (240 missiles) | 20 | - |
| Sandcaster Barrels (120 barrels) | 6 | - | |
| Armored Bulkheads | Bridge | 4 | 1 |
| Systems | Fuel Processor (100 tons per day) | 5 | 0.25 |
| Staterooms | Standard x30 | 120 | 15 |
| High x1 | 6 | 1 | |
| Software | Maneuver/0 | - | - |
| Intellect | - | 1 | |
| Evade/3 | - | 3 | |
| Fire Control/5 | - | 10 | |
| Library | - | - | |
| Common Areas | 32 | 3 | |
| Cargo | 5 | - |
Horst Patrol Tender
A Horst-class tender is equipped with a command bridge, sophisticated communication and sensor systems, and tactical software to coordinate the carried Falke patrol boats. Unloaded, the tender can achieve Thrust-4 and Jump-5.
Hull Points 5,544
Crew Captain, Officer x7, Pilot x3, Astrogator, Engineer x41, Maintenance x9, Medic, Gunner x15, Administrator x5
Maintenance Cost MCr0.650 per month
Purchase Cost MCr7,805 (not including craft)
| TL14 | Tons | Costs (MCr) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hull | 14,000 tons, Dispersed | - | 350 |
| Reinforced | - | 175 | |
| Armor | None | - | - |
| Radiation Shielding | - | 350 | |
| M-Drive | Thrust 2 | 600 | 1,200 |
| J-Drive | Jump 3 | 2,255 | 3,383 |
| Power Plant | Fusion (TL12), Power 21,000 | 1,400 | 1,400 |
| Fuel Tanks | 4 weeks operation, J-3 | 9,140 | - |
| Bridge | Command | 80 | 105 |
| Computer | Computer 30/fib | - | 30 |
| Sensors | Improved (Distributed Arrays) | 9 | 13 |
| Countermeasures Suite | 2 | 4 | |
| Enhanced Signal Processing | 2 | 8 | |
| Weapons | Triple Turret (beam laser/missile/sandcaster) x20 | 20 | 50 |
| Ammunition | Missile Storage (240 missiles) | 20 | - |
| Sandcaster Barrels (120 barrels) | 6 | - | |
| Screens | Meson Screen x1 | 10 | 20 |
| Nuclear Damper x1 | 10 | 10 | |
| Craft | Falke-class patrol boat x8 | - | 11,688 |
| Docking Clamp (Type IV) x8 | 160 | 640 | |
| Staterooms | Standard x47 | 188 | 24 |
| High x1 | 6 | 1 | |
| Software | Maneuver/0 | - | - |
| Intellect | - | 1 | |
| Evade/3 | - | 3 | |
| Fire Control/5 | - | 10 | |
| Jump Control/3 | - | 10 | |
| Battle System/2 | - | 24 | |
| Library | - | - | |
| Common Areas | 49 | 5 | |
| Cargo | 43 | - |
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