UCS Rabbit

[Graham Kennedy]

The Rabbit is a typical light patrol ship, used by the Coalition for anti-piracy and smuggling operations. The ship is tiny - under 60 metres long, with a crew of twelve people. Armament is comprised of two Mark 0.15 AMP cannon; the Rabbit outguns most pirate ships to be found in the Deep Range. With a top cruise speed of 68 kc and a maximum flat out of 110 kc it also outruns most, though engine damage will result if the latter speed is held for more than four hours. The design includes much more fuel than is usual in a craft of this size; endurance at 68 kc is 27 days, a range of 5,000 light years. At a more common patrol speed of 30 kc, the endurance rises to 139 days, giving a range of over 11,000 light years. Long range and endurance was deliberately specified in the original requirement to facilitate operations in the Deep Range.

[Monroe]

I like it!
I'd love to see these things blow up like so many Mirandas.

[Teaos]

Sweet. Thats the kind of ship I'd liek to serve on. Although I'd probably give mine a custom paint job

[Sionnach Glic]

Cool. That thing probably looks microscopic compaired to one of the larger ships.

[Graham Kennedy]

I tried putting them on my size comparison charts, but you can't really see them compared to something like a battleship. The Kororra class is something like 90 times the length of the Rabbit...

[Sionnach Glic]

So it just looks like a small speck?

[Graham Kennedy]

Pretty much. It's basically a faint 1 pixel dot on the standard size comp chart I have.

[Mikey]

I'm going to pretend that this is up because I asked about piracy.

Anyway, it's perfect - small, but designed specifically for high endurance (read: patrol duty.) I imagine that even with it's size, having such a small crew makes it relatively comfortable for those types of extended missions.

Would the same sort of thing be used for convoy duty, or so you have something else in the works?

[Graham Kennedy]

Convoys aren't much used, at least during peacetime. Too expensive in terms of keeping ships waiting around while the convoy is assembled, and piracy, while it does exist, isn't a big enough problem to require it. In wartime a convoy system can be used, but they'd be protected by serious warships - frigates, destroyers, maybe cruisers.

[Captain Seafort]

This looks more like a dedicated pirate chaser than an escort. Pirates generally rely on speed and surpise to ctach their victims, so fast ships are needed to catch them in return. As an example, the Royal Navy hired a couple of civilian schooners to go after Blackbeard, because their own frigates were too slow. How sucessful the tactic would have been if he'd still had QAR is debateable, but I digress.

Escorts don't need to be quick, as they only need to be able to keep up with merchant ships, with a few knots in reserve to allow them to manoeuvre on station. That and sufficient armament to outgun the sort of pirates and riff-raff they're most likely to encounter - if there's a chance of encountering enemy heavy forces you'd need to give them a covering force.

[Graham Kennedy]

The Rabbit certainly wouldn't be a purely defensive ship. The odds of any given cargo ship being hit are pretty low, enough that just following them around waiting for an attack is a pretty bad idea. A Rabbit might do that sometimes, following a cargo ship closely enough that they appear as one dot on a sensor, hoping a pirate ship will attack and get a nasty surprise. But they would spend more time patrolling around, looking for bases of operations hidden away, that kind of thing.

[Mikey]

Understood. Brigands are stopped more due to deterrence and patrol than actual escort.

Sefort - thanks for the example. Except for Morgan, who actually landed forces, didn't most Caribbean pirates use sloops or at largest brigantines for that reason?

[Captain Seafort]

Sefort - thanks for the example. Except for Morgan, who actually landed forces, didn't most Caribbean pirates use sloops or at largest brigantines for that reason?

Sir Henry Morgan was, to put it mildly, something else. The man had a private army that rivalled some countries - think Blackwater gone rogue.

As for the other, yes - partially because of the speed issue, partially because big guns were very expensive. Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge was very much the exception that proved the rule, in outgunning most frigates.

[Mikey]

Number and size of guns is one thing; but wasn't even the QAR herself only a sloop-rigged two-master?

partially because of the speed issue

And maneuverability - sloop-rigged ships can run across or away from the wind far better than the primarily square-rigged men-o-war.

[Graham Kennedy]

Added some more detailing.