Lurking Parasite

Erin posts and inspires me to post...

Small craft handling in Traveller.

I once watched a crew load a torpedo.  The tube is not much larger in diameter than the torpedo and it took a great deal of careful lining up to get the thing in smoothly.  It took a long time with ropes and tackle.

Looking at Traveller I see most small craft are torpedo shaped and many of the bays that store them are tightly fitted tubes.

The Broadsword class 800t Mercenary Cruiser is what inspired this.

It's a design where the 50 ton modular cutters are used to make the landing and to provide support to the company just landed.  Speed is of the essence.  Spending an hour lining up the cutter with the bay means lives may be lost.

So I started thinking of ways that the process could be speeded up and came up with something pretty simple.

A guide is extended out of the cutter bay.  The cutter gets "close" and the guide clamps on to fittings in the back of the cutter.  Now the straightening and alignment process is powered and mechanically performed by the parent ship.  Other rails would extend to stabilize the cutter as it was drawn into the bay.

The guide also has the fuel lines in it so the cutter wouldn't need to be drawn all the way in to get gas.

I figure the guide is on a powered swivel too so the cutter doesn't even have to be all that well aligned before it can be snatched.