Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Time to try out that repulsor spinal mount.
Armies of the Fifth Frontier War, Impressions Not Errata
- Thread starter ottarrus
- Start date
Perkanis83
Banded Mongoose
Facts
1, once a enemy has presence in the system the system is lost and should immediately surrender to avoid orbital annihilation
2, the enemy can always mass ships better then you can in the start of any conflict
3, you can not have enough ships in threatened regions to contest the attacking fleet due to economic reasons and strategic reasons
Conclusion as soon as a attacking fleet is detected any jump able ships leaves the system, do not seed mines do not pick up supplies they run fast and hard and should run for a sub sector or two or further back toward friendly depots then once enough ships have been collected at said depots and perhaps some reinforcements have arrived from deeper in (assuming the third imperium here) you then turn and counter attack flipping systems back to your side again and if able try to seek battles that you can win without risking either ships or the fleet as a whole. IF you encounter a enemy force strong enough to be a potential threat you run away again and repeat.
Since this is the strategic way you are going to be fighting this war ANY credit spent on orbital defenses or army units are a waste and should instead have been spent on mobile fleet units.
Those are actually suppositions, not facts. Reasonable ones based on the extremely limited view we have of the technology of the era. Traveller basically completely ignores large swathes of critical infrastructure and operations as not relevant to PC level play.
Traveller tends to err on the side of "everything dies" for game play purposes. It says that there are actual sieges of worlds and that armies exist and battleships are tough. But it designs game mechanics differently. There's no meaningful defensive structures in systems, battleships are quickly destroyed so fleet battles don't take ages to play out, armies have no defensive technologies to match the offensive advances, etc
It is true that if your enemy gathers his forces without your knowledge, you are screwed. But that's pretty true right now. That's another element that Traveller rarely if ever touches on is information warfare. The Zhos and Imperium would clearly have spies and spy ships trying to mitigate the lack of high speed communications with advance warning.
It's true that the aggressor can put his whole fleet whereever he wants. But it is also true that he has no way of knowing where your fleet is because it could move as far as his spy ships do. The Imperial Fleet is probably at Rhylanor, but what if it did surprise maneuvers at Porozlo when you arrived?
As I said in another thread, someone needs to simply decide what they want the warfare to look like and then reverse engineer the conditions to make it so. Otherwise, folks are trying to imagine what a jigsaw puzzle looks like from a random 10% of the pieces.
Traveller tends to err on the side of "everything dies" for game play purposes. It says that there are actual sieges of worlds and that armies exist and battleships are tough. But it designs game mechanics differently. There's no meaningful defensive structures in systems, battleships are quickly destroyed so fleet battles don't take ages to play out, armies have no defensive technologies to match the offensive advances, etc
It is true that if your enemy gathers his forces without your knowledge, you are screwed. But that's pretty true right now. That's another element that Traveller rarely if ever touches on is information warfare. The Zhos and Imperium would clearly have spies and spy ships trying to mitigate the lack of high speed communications with advance warning.
It's true that the aggressor can put his whole fleet whereever he wants. But it is also true that he has no way of knowing where your fleet is because it could move as far as his spy ships do. The Imperial Fleet is probably at Rhylanor, but what if it did surprise maneuvers at Porozlo when you arrived?
As I said in another thread, someone needs to simply decide what they want the warfare to look like and then reverse engineer the conditions to make it so. Otherwise, folks are trying to imagine what a jigsaw puzzle looks like from a random 10% of the pieces.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
The non jump capable spacecraft take a dive into the oceans, either gas or water.
It's really dependent, on what the strategy would be, one which is force the invading force to swallow a steel porcupine, and take Pyrrhic losses.
Which means, when the fleet comes to take back the system, the enemy might be severely attritioned.
It's really dependent, on what the strategy would be, one which is force the invading force to swallow a steel porcupine, and take Pyrrhic losses.
Which means, when the fleet comes to take back the system, the enemy might be severely attritioned.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Pretty sure orbital bombardment doesn't care if you are underwater or not. Just keep throwing rocks. For an in-universe example, look at Drinax cerca 890
Perkanis83
Banded Mongoose
I have no interest in your planet so rocks form space unless you instantly surrender your pick
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
No morality in war. Win. It is why war is so horrific.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
As I recall, you need to divert rocks by a couple of degrees to make them miss a planet.
Or, blow them up.
Or, blow them up.
Perkanis83
Banded Mongoose
Saving time, still takes time to drop rocks
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Also remember that most populations in Charted Space are consolidated in a few areas of their planets. Most worlds' populations aren't spread out like on Earth today? You can take out 90% of the population and only lose 1 or 2% of the land area.
Edit - Also, what is genocide on one planet with a population of 20,000 is barely a skirmish on a planet of 5 billion.
Sure, I guess. If the planet surrendering mysteriously changes something about the situation. If you don't care about the planet or its population, you probably aren't landing on the planet. So why do you care about the planet at all? Just ignore it and do whatever it is you cared enough about to come here for.
But none of that changes the fact that we don't actually know much of anything about the viability of any particular kind of behavior with regards to space warfare. We assume no one figures out any defense against orbital bombardment in the next 3500 years. Or what is or isn't economically viable about monitors, defense stations, and all the rest.
Most importantly, this is a game. You can certainly design a game that says "the army is irrelevant, defending your frontiers is pointless, and the bold naval strategy is Run Away!". But is that the kind of game we want to play? Does it meet the needs of sci fi players?
We are making all of this up. It behooves us to make up stuff that makes for a fun game situation.
But none of that changes the fact that we don't actually know much of anything about the viability of any particular kind of behavior with regards to space warfare. We assume no one figures out any defense against orbital bombardment in the next 3500 years. Or what is or isn't economically viable about monitors, defense stations, and all the rest.
Most importantly, this is a game. You can certainly design a game that says "the army is irrelevant, defending your frontiers is pointless, and the bold naval strategy is Run Away!". But is that the kind of game we want to play? Does it meet the needs of sci fi players?
We are making all of this up. It behooves us to make up stuff that makes for a fun game situation.
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
If the defenders have meson emplacements, they would have a decent chance of breaking up or destroying the rocks. If they fail, the surface of the planet is destroyed again, its destruction is all the aggressor gains, and again the aggressor can look forward to his worlds receiving a similar treatment. A side that crosses the line into black war tactics had better not lose, ever.
It's worth it to consider why the planet in being invaded in the first place. If it's to deny it to the enemy or to punish, then bombing high value targets from orbit is the a viable tactic. If the reason is to possess, control, or gain benefit from the resources or facilities of the planet, then orbital bombardment would destroy what the aggressor is trying to possess.
Something else to consider is that the number of warheads needed to devastate an entire planetary surface is in the thousands. There would need to be a dedicated supply line bringing thousands of warheads to each occupied system every time a planet needed to be destroyed. Against inhospitable worlds with only one or a few major population centers, it could be done with only a few warheads. Against a planet like Tarsus, the population could scatter, release their herds, and the aggressor fleet would have to expend thousands of warheads over a few days devastating the surface. And for what? What would the aggressor force gain?
My point is that orbital bombardment and/or rock dropping is not an instant-win button. Sometimes, possibly many times, it can compel surrender, but other times not. It depends on how much the defenders hate the aggressors, what the defenders' culture is like, what kind of civil defense and defensive capabilities the defender has, and how much destructive force the aggressor can bring to bear. The aggressor can drop extinction level event sized rocks on a world, but if the population had robust civil defense capabilities and is willing to live in bunkers for 20 years, what does the aggressor gain?
EDIT: It also depends on how bad the defenders think occupation is going to be. In one instance during the Middle Ages, an aggressor negotiation team went to a small keep they had besieged to discuss terms of the garrison's surrender. When the negotiation team entered the courtyard, its members casually started abusing women and children among the townsfolk who had taken shelter in the keep. The defenders were so disgusted and enraged by this behavior that every defender, soldier and civilian, man, woman, and child capable of reason, declared that they would fight to the death rather than fall into the hands of the aggressor. And they did.
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The evidence of Charted Space history is that planetary sieges do happen, that bombarding planets with rocks is possible but happens rarely enough to be notable, armies actually serve some sort of purpose, and that bombing planets is apparently complicated enough that the Imperium has specialized ships for that purpose rather than just using whatever spaceships happen to be around.
I don't think we have much information on these "bombardment" or "siege" cruisers, but it is possible that they exist to deliver precision strikes instead of indiscriminate attacks that regular ships would do. IIRC, they do have a lot of mass drivers that are not commonly used on spaceships.
We also know that published Charted Space materials essentially ignore all space infrastructure except the highport component of the starport(s). There's no discussion of sensor arrays, defense stations, or even most commercial stuff like refueling stations, mining bases, and the like. For the same reason it's unusual to discuss the rest of the system besides the main world and any gas giants present.
This is a clear example of Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The powerful worlds like Rhylanor could be surrounded by rings of orbital defense stations and have deep planetary meson bays. Who knows? They might have city sized meson screens or nuclear dampers. Or repulsor bays to deflect rocks. Planetary based EW may be substantially more powerful than a ship can generate, making it hard to target the surface with any accuracy.
Or maybe they are a giant helpless ball of rock waiting to be annihilated by the Zhodani.
I don't think we have much information on these "bombardment" or "siege" cruisers, but it is possible that they exist to deliver precision strikes instead of indiscriminate attacks that regular ships would do. IIRC, they do have a lot of mass drivers that are not commonly used on spaceships.
We also know that published Charted Space materials essentially ignore all space infrastructure except the highport component of the starport(s). There's no discussion of sensor arrays, defense stations, or even most commercial stuff like refueling stations, mining bases, and the like. For the same reason it's unusual to discuss the rest of the system besides the main world and any gas giants present.
This is a clear example of Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The powerful worlds like Rhylanor could be surrounded by rings of orbital defense stations and have deep planetary meson bays. Who knows? They might have city sized meson screens or nuclear dampers. Or repulsor bays to deflect rocks. Planetary based EW may be substantially more powerful than a ship can generate, making it hard to target the surface with any accuracy.
Or maybe they are a giant helpless ball of rock waiting to be annihilated by the Zhodani.
MonsterX
Emperor Mongoose
Buried meson guns are canon canons. So are SDBs hiding.
Obviously sensor arrays in various places would be crucial for any important system. Your SDBs can do that too, but if you want to turn on active sensors, you need to be willing to sacrifice that system.
Ship combat tends to finish in a short time, ONCE IT HAPPENS. But ship travel around systems takes days, maybe weeks, and finding each other is not a given. Detection is at 300,000 usually, if you make your roll. You know they are out there because of the jump signature but you don't know much about them, or where they are now.
There can be lots of objects to destroy or capture in a system. Fuels sources will be important.
Concentrating your fleet is going to be key to winning, but so is splitting up to patrol to find the enemy, and to occupy the various places that need to be captured. So it is a dilemma.
Bombarding with rocks has only a minor roll in canon. While we can image a SCIFI setting where it is the main thing, that setting is not Traveller.
Obviously sensor arrays in various places would be crucial for any important system. Your SDBs can do that too, but if you want to turn on active sensors, you need to be willing to sacrifice that system.
Ship combat tends to finish in a short time, ONCE IT HAPPENS. But ship travel around systems takes days, maybe weeks, and finding each other is not a given. Detection is at 300,000 usually, if you make your roll. You know they are out there because of the jump signature but you don't know much about them, or where they are now.
There can be lots of objects to destroy or capture in a system. Fuels sources will be important.
Concentrating your fleet is going to be key to winning, but so is splitting up to patrol to find the enemy, and to occupy the various places that need to be captured. So it is a dilemma.
Bombarding with rocks has only a minor roll in canon. While we can image a SCIFI setting where it is the main thing, that setting is not Traveller.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
The aim of war it to win it, you can start with a set of rules, but they tend to go out of the airlock when expedient to do so.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Planetary governments can do the old Medieval custom of promising to surrender if their allies don't send a fleet capable of relieving the siege, within a certain period.
Or, be like Krieg, hunker down, and build up your military.
Or, Terra.
Or, be like Krieg, hunker down, and build up your military.
Or, Terra.
paltrysum
Emperor Mongoose
For a fictional description of how devastating orbital bombardment might be, refer to Neal Stephenson's Seveneves. The Moon gets broken up and its shards come tumbling into the Earth's atmosphere. I'm not sure how if that's exactly how it would play out, but knowing what I know of Stephenson, I'm sure he did due diligence in his research.
