Traveller Illustrated

…in my book.

The Classic Traveller 400 dton Lurushaar Kilaalum Class patrol cruiser is considered to be incorrectly designated as a cruiser, which is true to the extend of naval war ships. I do actually propose the patrol cruiser’s type designation to be considered valid for reasons outlined below.

First a description of the ship taken from the Classic Traveller rulebook:

The Lurushaar Kilaalum class of patrol ships are often employed by local planetary navies or law enforcement authorities for in-system police work; they are frequently encountered as revenue cutters, customs enforcement vessels, and in similar roles. In addition, the ship is commonly employed by Imperial subsector fleets and other large formations for patrol, security, and recon duties. A versatile ship, the patrol cruiser is efficient in almost any role.

I’d like to translate customs enforcement vessel as coast guard vessel when compared to the real world. One of the chief tasks the coast guard is  to perform  SAR missions for vessels in distress or shipwrecked crews.

While a good portion of the world calls these vessels SAR boat, SAR cutter or SAR ship, there are independend organizations calling these ships  SAR cruiser.

One example is the DGzRS (Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Rettung Schiffbrüchiger, which roughly translates into German society for rescuing shipwrecked people). The private donation-financed non-profit organisation employs several SAR vessels along the german coasts ranging from around 15m to around 45m in length which are officially called Seenotrettungskreuzer or roughly translated distress rescue cruiser or SAR cruiser.

The US Coast Guard on the other hand calls their vessels cutters and some of these are really big and called National Security Cutter
with a length of about 418 ft, which definetely is a cruiser sized vessel.

The following lines are an excerpt from the Wikipedia article Cruiser:

The first cruisers were intended for individual raiding and protection missions on the seas.  [...]

Historically, a ‘cruiser’ was not a type of ship but a warship role. Cruisers were ships—often frigates or smaller vessels—that were assigned a role largely independent from the fleet; in a sense, cruising independently. Typically, this might involve missions such as raiding enemy merchant shipping. In the late 19th century, the term ‘cruiser’ came to mean ships designed to fulfill such a role, and from the 1890s to the 1950s a ‘cruiser’ was a warship larger than a destroyer but smaller than a battleship.

What do we have here?

• A frigate or smaller vessel [check]
• largely independent from fleet [check]
• raiding enemy merchant ships [well some people call customs operations raiding... check]

So one could say: the US Coast Guard calls cruiser sized vessels cutters and the DGzRS calls cutter sized vessels cruisers. And the Imperial Navy calls 400 dton patrol ships patrol cruisers. The term is valid since one should assume a designation by role and not by size here.

In my book the Lurushaar Kilaalum will always remain a patrol cruiser.

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