Range of a gyphon-class shuttle?

[Kuri]

So, I'm working on a new situation for possible development into short stories.

Let's say there's a "Deep Space One" station bordering the Romulan Neutral Zone and the Eridan Belt during TOS era (thank you Memory Beta).

Would a gryphon-class shuttle (about 40m long) have the range to carry out missions to systems in the Eridan Belt? I want to avoid full-scale battleships with the full complement of hundreds of crew.

The idea is a small military team get to the systems (unnoticed), land, do their missions, then get back to base for refueling/debriefing.

http://lcars.ucip.org/images/a/a7/Gryphon_Runabout.jpg

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I would say it's range is as far as the plot needs it to go. Runabouts never had any problems.

If they were on a long-haul mission then extra antimatter pods could be included and non-essential equipment stripped out.

 

[Sgt_G]

Unless you go with replicators (which weren't invented until TNG), food, water, and air are more of a limiting factor. And even if you technobabble your way out of that, a small crew means long hours and no days off, so if nothing else crew rest becomes the main issue. Without knowing more, I would hazard a guess missions should be about a week to ten days, no more than two weeks, before your crew needs a break.

 

[Sgt_G]

Okay, now that I'm on a computer that will actually display the image and allow me to evaluate the ship you want to use ....

That looks more like an airliner intended for flights of a few hours or perhaps a day, two max. At 4.5 meters high, it can have only one deck. The wingspan is 18 meters, and the cabin body is maybe about one-third that, so call it 6 meters / 20 feet wide by perhaps 25-30 meters / 80-100 feet long, not counting the cockpit. Factor in what you need for engineering and life support, and that's not a heck of a lot of room left for people, especially if you need to bunk them.

Can you still use this as a special ops transport? Sure. But not for long-range deep space missions, and it won't be able to fight its way in/out of the drop zone. I'm going to revise my estimate to make it a three to five day ship, a week tops. Figure two or three man crew, times two (day/night shifts), plus a dozen or so shooters, puts you in the 15-20 personnel range. Does that sound about right for your story??

 

[Kuri]

@Bry_Sinclair great. Thanks for the reply!

@Sgt_G Yes, that's about right. I'm actually thinking a smaller crew of 6 (3 shifts of 2) which doubles as the recon squad upon landing (these are highly trained people). Then I'm thinking a travel time of 2-3 days max.

According to Memory Alpha a ship can go warp 8.3 for 11.3 hours and cover 990 light years.

For reference, Alpha Centauri is about 4 light years from our Sol.

The gryphon cruising speed is 6.5.

The Eridan Belt's name indicates a number of stars in close proximity (if not a cluster). Let's say average 4-5 LY apart. Even if it's only 500 LY across that's potentially a hundred systems to explore - all within 72 hours of a conveniently placed Deep Space One.

Food and supplies they can carry in a backpack. The limiting factor is indeed crew fatigue.

 

[Sgt_G]

I'm actually thinking a smaller crew of 6 (3 shifts of 2) which doubles as the recon squad upon landing (these are highly trained people).

That's too much like Space Above and Beyond where they couldn't make up their minds whether they were fighter pilots or special ops shooters. I would really suggest keeping the flight crew and the mission crew as separate jobs, if for no other reason you want someone to defend the ride home while you're out doing the mission.

Food and supplies they can carry in a backpack.

It's more than that. Seriously. Look in your pantry and figure out how much food you'd need to feed six or eight people for three or four days. It adds up quick. Imagine the headaches I went thru when I designed deck plans for a ship with a crew of a hundred and missions lasting six to nine months.

 

[Kuri]

@Sgt_G Yeh, I'm thinking 3 dedicated pilots (one of whom doubles as Commander). From the various series we see just about everyone in starfleet can handle a runabout.

So, we have one dedicated pilot for each shift with a second observer trained to basic level.

Of the remaining three we have a military "surveyor" - pseudo science officer - makes initial classification of local species and tech levels.

Then a military engineer - useful for "sapper" type jobs as well as handling on-board tech faults.

Finally at number 6 a medic? Still thinking about that one. Heavy weapons specialist springs to mind.

Noted that I'll need space for food supplies on the ship.

What do you think?

 

[Sgt_G]

Well, not the way I would do it, as I said, but if you stay internally consistent it can work. I do like that your commander is also a pilot and not just someone who sits in the Center Seat.

I looked it up. A standard Green Beret team has 12 men. A SEAL platoon has 16 men (but SEALS typically operates in 4 or 8 man units). With that in mind, I would go with: flight crew -- two pilots (O4 and O3), two co-pilots (O2s), two flight engineers. Mission crew -- team leader (O3), deputy team leader (O2), Gunny Sgt (E7), SSgt (E6), medic, commo / sensor tech, and six riflemen, plus any mission specialists required for the job at hand. Of course, you can always swap out / add sappers and/or snipers and/or heavy weapons as the mission dictates. The pilot-in-command has final go/no-go say as to whether or not to land for the mission.

 

[Admiral2]

That's too much like Space Above and Beyond where they couldn't make up their minds whether they were fighter pilots or special ops shooters. .

They did make up their minds. They were both.

The purpose of the series was to be an allegory for World War II in the Pacific. The idea was to show the progression of a massive campaign in space and on the surfaces of planets just as the Pacific War was a massive campaign on land and at sea. The thing was they weren't going to hire two entire sets of actors just so one set would only fly fighters and the other would only be boots on the ground, so they said, "Okay, they'll be pilots when the story demands it and they'll be infantry when the story demands it, and we won't waste a lot of dialogue on explaining that they're trained to do both, because that should be pretty damn obvious." In fact, they dealt with your complaint in an episode where TC McQueen dressed down some nameless individuals who purportedly complained about pilots having to act like ground troops. Basically, he said you do what you're told and perform the job assigned because that's where people smarter than you decided you were needed.

Same thing here. If Kuri wants the shooters to be the same as the flight crew that's perfectly fine. They're shooters before they board, then flight crew in transit, and then ground-pounders again when they reach the target. There's no law against it.

 

[Sgt_G]

If Kuri wants the shooters to be the same as the flight crew that's perfectly fine.

And I said that. I have no problem with how he wants to write the story. It's just not how I would write it, if it was mine. But it's not mine; it's his. In the long run, it doesn't matter to me --IF-- he can write a story worth reading, then I'll read it.

 

[Kuri]

That's a big IF there, Sarg.

 

[Sgt_G]

I hope not. I guess we just have to wait and see.